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President Trump struck a conciliatory tone in June 2020, just weeks after the murder of George Floyd, when he signed an executive order on police reform. The order laid the groundwork for what would later become the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database.

“Reducing crime and raising [police] standards are not opposite goals,” Trump stated. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”

That tone and vision are now gone. In his second term, Trump has reversed course on three primary police reform initiatives he previously either supported or allowed to continue. His actions signal not only a policy shift, but a full-scale regression that is likely undermining both public trust and law enforcement effectiveness.

For one, Trump killed the National Law Enforcement Accountability Database on his first day back in office. A compilation of the disciplinary records of nearly 150,000 federal law enforcement officers dating back to 2018, the database had afforded all 90 executive branch agencies the ability to search for

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