President Donald Trump issued an extended social media post this week attacking the Center for American Progress (CAP) over a July report that sharply criticized his National Guard deployments, according to The Hill.

CAP, founded in 2003, is one of the most prominent progressive policy organizations in Washington and has longstanding ties to Democratic administrations and congressional leadership. The think tank's report, published on July 13, concluded that the deployment of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., had "failed to reduce violent crime despite its claims of success." Trump's broadside came shortly after the report's author, Chandler Hall, presented its findings during an appearance on C-SPAN.

In his post, Trump threatened CAP with a lawsuit and singled out a lengthy list of entities he said provide funding to the organization, including George Soros, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Google, Apple, Visa, Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Walmart, Toyota, T-Mobile, and NBC Universal. He also named foreign supporters, including the Embassy of Japan, the Korea Foundation, the Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office (Taiwan), and the Embassy of the United Arab Emirates.

"Chandler Hall, representing, on Television, the foolish Center for American Lack of Progress, stated that adding the National Guard to Cities, including our now Great Again, Washington, D.C., had 'NO impact on Crime.' How crazy is that," Trump wrote. "Hall was met with furious dissent. The report is just another Radical Left SCAM, as are the people who fund this gaggle of Lunatics."

He continued: "The Dumocrats love it, and are against anything 'TRUMP.' These people, and others like them, are so bad for our Country. Their stated course is anything to hate or demean 'TRUMP.' This will be met with a lawsuit, which is being drawn now. I am also strongly considering adding some of the contributors to this Fake Organization. Crime is way down since I took Office, and they know it. Liars, at this level, must be held accountable!"

Any such lawsuit would face a high legal bar. Under the Supreme Court's 1964 ruling in New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, public figures must prove that a defendant acted with "actual malice" — meaning knowledge of falsity or reckless disregard for the truth — to prevail in defamation claims. That standard has historically made it difficult for elected officials to successfully sue critics over policy disputes or published analyses.

The CAP report argued that "the second Trump administration is trying to take credit for the historic drop in violent crime across America," despite the trend having begun years before Trump returned to the White House. FBI uniform crime data and independent analyses have documented declining violent crime rates nationally since a pandemic-era peak around 2021. According to the report, the administration has leveraged that preexisting decline to "justify expanding policies that are unpopular, ineffective and costly."

"Even though the data clearly show that violent crime and homicides were already dropping in American cities in 2023 and 2024, the Trump administration has continued to threaten city and state leaders and argue that its extreme actions, such as deploying the National Guard to support law enforcement operations, are improving public safety," Hall's report stated. "However, new Center for American Progress analysis finds no evidence that National Guard deployments have reduced violent crime. Moreover, if these deployments are extended and continue through the end of 2026, they could cost American taxpayers more than $1.7 billion."