President Donald Trump announced on Monday that he was placing Washington D.C.'s police department under federal control and deploying 800 National Guard troops to the U.S. capital to address what he described as a wave of lawlessness, even though data shows violent crime fell to a 30-year low in 2024.
"I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, D.C.," Trump told reporters at the White House, flanked by administration officials including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi. "Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals."
The Republican president, who said he was formally declaring a public safety emergency, compared crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others.
Trump also said his administration has started removing homeless encampments "from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks."
"We're getting rid of the slums, too," he said, adding that the U.S. would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.
Trump's announcement is his latest effort to target Democratic-run cities by exercising executive power over traditionally local matters, and he has shown particular interest in asserting more control over Washington.
The Republican president has dismissed criticism that he is manufacturing a crisis to justify expanding presidential authority in a heavily Democratic city.
Hundreds of officers and agents from over a dozen federal agencies, including the FBI, ICE, DEA and ATF, have fanned out across the city in recent days.
Bondi will be taking over responsibility for Washington's metro police department, Trump said, while also complaining about potholes and graffiti in the city and calling them "embarrassing."
In making his announcement, Trump described Washington as a hellscape of bloodthirsty criminals and unchecked violence.
The Democratic mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, has pushed back on Trump's claims, saying the city is "not experiencing a crime spike" and highlighting that violent crime hit its lowest level in more than three decades last year.
Violent crime fell 26% in the first seven months of 2025 after dropping 35% in 2024, and overall crime dropped 7%, according to the city's police department.
Over the past week, Trump has intensified his messaging, suggesting he might attempt to strip the city of its local autonomy and implement a full federal takeover.
The District of Columbia, established in 1790, operates under the Home Rule Act, which gives Congress ultimate authority but allows residents to elect a mayor and city council. Trump said last week that lawyers are examining how to overturn the law, a move that would likely require Congress to revoke it.
In taking over the Metropolitan Police Department, Trump invoked a section of the act that allows the president to use the force temporarily when "special conditions of an emergency nature" exist. Trump said he was declaring a "public safety emergency" in the city.
Trump's own Federal Emergency Management Agency is cutting security funding for the National Capital Region, an area that includes D.C. and nearby cities in Maryland and Virginia. The region will receive $20 million less this year from the federal urban security fund, amounting to a 44% year-on-year cut.
The deployment of National Guard troops is a tactic the president used in Los Angeles, where he dispatched 5,000 troops in June in response to protests over his administration's immigration raids. State and local officials objected to Trump's decision as unnecessary and inflammatory.
A federal trial was set to begin on Monday in San Francisco on whether the Trump administration violated U.S. law by deploying National Guard troops and U.S. Marines without the approval of Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.
The president has broad authority over the 2,700 members of the D.C. National Guard, unlike in states where governors typically hold the power to activate troops. Guard troops have been dispatched to Washington many times, including in response to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of Trump supporters.
During his first term as president, Trump sent the National Guard into Washington in 2020 to help quash mostly peaceful demonstrations during nationwide protests over police brutality following the murder of George Floyd. Civil rights leaders denounced the deployment, which was opposed by Bowser.
The U.S. military is generally prohibited under law from directly participating in domestic law enforcement activities.
Since the 1980s, Trump has used crime, especially youth crime in cities, as a political tool. His 1989 call for the death penalty in the Central Park jogger case, involving five Black and Latino teens later exonerated of raping and beating a woman, remains among the controversial moments of his public life.
The "Central Park Five" sued Trump for defamation after he falsely said during a presidential debate last year that they had pleaded guilty.
