President Donald Trump vowed Wednesday to push for an end to cashless bail and expand use of the federal death penalty as he laid out his public-safety agenda during the Republican midterm convention in Dallas.
Speaking at the American Airlines Center, Trump said his administration would pursue tougher penalties for certain serious crimes while urging voters to keep Republicans in control of Congress.
“We will end no cash bail, and institute the death penalty for large-scale drug dealers, human traffickers, and murderers of our law enforcement heroes,” Trump told the crowd.
The remarks came during a nearly two-hour address in which Trump focused heavily on crime, immigration and the November midterm elections.
Trump has already taken executive action aimed at jurisdictions that have significantly reduced or eliminated cash bail.
An executive order signed in August 2025 directed the attorney general to identify states and local governments that had substantially eliminated cash bail for crimes the administration considered serious threats to public safety.
The order also instructed federal departments and agencies to identify grants, contracts and other federal funds provided to those jurisdictions that could potentially be suspended or terminated, where permitted by law.
Cashless bail generally allows defendants to be released before trial without requiring them to post a monetary bond.
Supporters of bail reform have argued that financial conditions can keep lower-income defendants incarcerated before trial despite their not having been convicted, while proponents of stricter bail policies argue judges need greater tools to detain defendants viewed as public-safety risks.
Some states and cities have changed their bail systems in recent years, including New York, which eliminated cash bail for many misdemeanor and nonviolent felony cases beginning in 2020.
Trump’s Dallas remarks also included a renewed call for broader use of capital punishment.
On his first day back in office, Trump signed an executive order directing the Justice Department to pursue the death penalty in eligible federal cases and reversing the previous administration’s moratorium on federal executions.
The Justice Department announced additional changes in April designed to strengthen implementation of the federal death penalty.
Those measures included readopting the lethal-injection protocol used during Trump’s first administration, expanding available execution methods to include firing squads where legally authorized and streamlining internal procedures governing federal capital cases.
Federal prosecutors had moved to seek the death penalty against defendants in dozens of cases by this summer, according to figures cited in the source.
Trump has repeatedly argued that capital punishment serves as a deterrent for particularly serious crimes.
His latest proposal specifically named large-scale drug trafficking, human trafficking and murders of law enforcement officers as categories where he wants the punishment applied.
Any expansion of capital punishment would still be constrained by federal statutes, constitutional requirements and court precedent governing which crimes are eligible for a death sentence, per the New York Post.
Trump tied his broader crime agenda directly to the midterm campaign Wednesday, portraying Republican control of Congress as necessary to continue his administration’s policies.
The Dallas event is the Republican Party’s first national convention organized specifically around a midterm election, with Trump positioned at the center of the party’s message heading toward November.
During his speech, Trump also argued that crime has declined during his second term and contrasted his administration’s approach with Democratic criminal-justice policies.
“The Democrats put handcuffs on our police, but we put handcuffs on criminals,” Trump said.
Trump’s cash-bail and death-penalty pledges now add public safety to a broader set of proposals he unveiled at the convention as Republicans campaign to retain their House and Senate majorities in November.
