Trump orders National Guard to Washington and takeover of capital’s police
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump significantly escalated his efforts to exert federal authority over the nation’s capital Monday, saying he was temporarily taking control of the city’s police department and deploying 800 National Guard troops to fight crime there.
At a White House news conference, the president painted a dystopian picture of Washington — including “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth” — that stood in sharp contrast to official figures showing violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low.
Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi would oversee the federal takeover of the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department and, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at his side, added that he was prepared to send the military into Washington “if needed.” A White House official said the takeover was intended to last for 30 days.
Local officials immediately criticized the president’s actions. Brian Schwalb, the attorney general of D.C., called them “unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful,” and said his office “will do what’s necessary to protect the rights and safety of district residents.”
Trump also threatened to expand his efforts to other cities, including Chicago, if they did not deal with crime rates he claimed were “out of control.” But Trump’s authority to intervene elsewhere would be more limited: His announcement Monday invoked a section of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that grants him the power to temporarily seize control of the city’s police department.
Here’s what else to know:
— D.C. deployment: Unlike a state’s governor, the District of Columbia does not have control over its National Guard, giving the president broad leeway to deploy those troops. The Trump administration also plans to temporarily reassign 120 FBI agents in Washington to nighttime patrol duties as part of the crackdown, according to people familiar with the matter.
— Dystopian claims: Trump’s most recent threats to take control of Washington came after a prominent member of the Department of Government Efficiency, his federal cost-cutting initiative, reported being beaten in an attempted carjacking. But Monday he sought to lay out an even darker version of the city, overrun by violent crime and anarchy, that many who live in it are unlikely to recognize.
— Familiar targets: In decrying crime as out of control in cities across the country, he listed familiar targets like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago but did not mention cities in Republican-led states with the highest murder rates: St. Louis, New Orleans or Memphis, Tennessee. He also ignored the most violent episode in Washington’s recent history: the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, in which his supporters sought to stop the certification of the 2020 election he lost. Trump pardoned hundreds of rioters, many of whom had already been convicted of crimes and were serving sentences before being immediately released in January.
— Other deployments: This summer, Trump deployed nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles with orders to help quell protests that had erupted over immigration raids and to protect the federal agents conducting them. All but about 250 of those National Guard troops have since been withdrawn. And in his first term, Trump called up National Guard soldiers and federal law enforcement personnel to forcibly clear peaceful protests during the Black Lives Matter protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.