Trump Tackles Cashless Bail

Trump is right.

Criminals walk away and never come back. They are no repercussions for crime. That’s not civilization, that’s barbarity.

TAKING STEPS TO END CASHLESS BAIL TO PROTECT AMERICANS

Executive Orders

August 25, 2025

By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, it is hereby ordered:

Section 1. Purpose and Policy. Maintaining order and public safety requires incarcerating individuals whose pending criminal charges or criminal history demonstrate a clear ongoing risk to society. When these individuals are released without bail under city or State policies, they are permitted — even encouraged — to further endanger law-abiding, hard-working Americans because they know our laws will not be enforced. Our great law enforcement officers risk their lives to arrest potentially violent criminals, only to be forced to arrest the same individuals, sometimes for the same crimes, while they await trial on the previous charges. This is a waste of public resources and a threat to public safety.

As President, I will require commonsense policies that protect Americans’ safety and well-being by incarcerating individuals who are known threats. It is therefore the policy of my Administration that Federal policies and resources should not be used to support jurisdictions with cashless bail policies, to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Sec. 2. Consequences for Cashless Bail Jurisdictions. (a) Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Attorney General shall submit to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security, a list of States and local jurisdictions that have, in the Attorney General’s opinion, substantially eliminated cash bail as a potential condition of pretrial release from custody for crimes that pose a clear threat to public safety and order, including offenses involving violent, sexual, or indecent acts, or burglary, looting, or vandalism. The Attorney General shall update this list as necessary.

(b) The head of each executive department and agency, in coordination with the Director of the Office of Management and Budget, shall identify Federal funds, including grants and contracts, currently provided to cashless bail jurisdictions identified pursuant to subsection (a) of this section that may be suspended or terminated, as appropriate and consistent with applicable law.

Sec. 3. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:

(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department or agency, or the head thereof; or

(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

(d) The costs for publication of this order shall be borne by the Department of Justice.

Trump is dead right to target cashless bail by threatening to withhold federal funds
By Post Editorial Board, Aug. 25, 2025:

President Donald Trump is entirely right to push back against progressive cashless-bail “reforms,” even if the feds can’t directly counter the state lawmakers who’ve imposed them.

On Monday, Trump signed an executive order instructing the attorney general to identify “states and local jurisdictions” that have “substantially eliminated cash bail,” with an eye to cutting some federal funds for those areas.
President Trump signing executive orders in the Oval OfficePresident Trump signed an executive order pushing states and cities to end cashless bail. Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The White House is on solid ground in citing how no-bail laws empower “repeat criminals who mock our justice system by committing crime after crime without consequence,” and it’s beyond fair for Trump to fume over how such jurisdictions “waste” funds and create “a threat to public safety” by cutting loose perps with “pending criminal charges or criminal history.”
The best way to describe cashless bail:

That said, the law now only allows for limited leveraging of some federal funds, and we fear legislators in states like New York will be all too willing to hike taxes to make up for the loss — and also to shrug at whatever holes in knocks in local government’s budgets.

Albany certainly has no problem dropping its own billion-dollar burdens on City Hall.

Yet the president’s push is still, on balance, good policy and better politics.

Above all, it nationalizes a debate that progressives would rather restrict to areas where they dominate, and so helps force them to defend these policies.

Policies that tell criminals they’ll face no serious immediate consequences for their crimes, and so mushroom rates of recidivism; policies that leave cops having to re-arrest perps who’ve been freed while awaiting trial for other crimes — sometimes just days, or even mere hours, after their first arrests.
See Also
An image collage containing 3 images, Image 1 shows President Trump signing executive orders to end cashless bail policies, Image 2 shows National Guard members patrolling Union Station in Washington, D.C, Image 3 shows Police officers detaining a man at night
Trump signs orders cracking down on cashless bail, slapping federal charges on DC suspects

Since then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed on to the Empire State’s no-bail madness in 2019, New York City has seen countless perps nabbed for serious crimes but freed without bail — only to be hauled in again for new crimes soon after.

Like Enyerbert Blanco, a suspected Tren de Aragua gang member somehow set loose without bail after an attempted murder rap, then arrested on drug charges and freed again in Florida and finally hauled in a third time for sex-trafficking a 15-year-old New York City runaway.

Or the case of the serial shoplifter arrested a jaw-dropping 254 times but repeatedly let go on “supervised release.”

Some may complain of using a cutoff of federal funds as a cudgel against state laws, but that horse left the barn decade ago, and the left was all for it when President Barack Obama did it to push trans rights in school bathrooms and President Joe Biden did his own bullying over state abortion and labor laws.

As for the politics: Yes, most Americans want criminals behind bars.