The White House ousted a top aide, Rob Porter, after it was reported that he had physically and verbally abused two ex-wives. President Trump was “very saddened” by the reports, a spokesman, Raj Shah, said at Thursday’s news briefing. Mr. Shah added that the White House does “take violence against women and these types of allegations very seriously.”

Those are the sorts of sentiments you’d want to hear from the president and his staff after such revelations. Of course, it’d be easier to take them at face value if his chief of staff, John Kelly, hadn’t reportedly known about the allegations against Mr. Porter since the fall, and if Mr. Trump’s first wife hadn’t accused him of rape and if more than a dozen women hadn’t said he sexually molested, assaulted and harassed them. That’s not to mention his own taped admission of grabbing women by the genitals.

It would be even easier to take seriously the official White House line about Mr. Porter if officials there had shown any appetite to fight violence against women. If they become interested in doing more than talk, here are some ideas:

Name a White House adviser on violence against women, a position created during the Obama administration that has gone unfilled for the past year. Likewise, the Trump administration has not appointed anyone to head the Department of Justice’s Office of Violence Against Women, nor to be the State Department’s ambassador at large for global women’s issues.

Advocate full funding of the Violence Against Women Act, which is the principal tool for focusing federal attention on domestic abuse. The law, passed in 1994, has directed billions of dollars toward policing and prosecuting offenders as well as providing legal and other services to victims. Cases of domestic violence in the United States have dropped precipitously as a result. And yet, since Mr. Trump was elected, its proponents have lived in constant fear of funding cuts. Beyond declaring it a funding priority, the Justice Department should be directed to make enforcing the law a priority, too.