‘This Will Go Further’: Trump Puts D.C. Police Under His Control and Deploys National Guard

President Donald Trump announced Monday he was temporarily putting the Washington, D.C. police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard on the streets of the nation's capitol, a striking move taken over the objections of local leaders, who say Trump is exaggerating the city's crime problems.

Trump said he declared a public safety emergency and invoked section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which gives the President of the United States the authority to commandeer DC's Police Department in “conditions of an emergency nature.” Attorney General Pam Bondi is now in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department, he said.

"It's time for dramatic action," Trump said at a press conference that stretched to over an hour as he took questions on a wide range of topics. He did not specify how long the federal takeover of D.C. would last, though the executive order signed on Monday declared the Administration would take over D.C. law enforcement “for the maximum period permitted” under the Home Rule Act, which is up to 30 days unless Congress authorizes an extension.

Trump is launching a rare expansion of presidential authority over local government, and said he would not stop with the nation’s capital. In addition to Washington, Trump also mentioned other major cities where he wants to put police under federal control, including New York City, Baltimore, and Oakland. “They're so far gone," Trump said. “This will go further. We’re starting very strongly with D.C." 

In recent days, Trump has deployed federal officers from the U.S. Park Police, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, and the U.S. Marshals Service on night patrols in D.C., according to ATF’s X account. On Monday, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth suggested "other" specialized units will be deployed in Washington, D.C., at Trump's direction. 

“You will see them flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week,” Hegseth said, without specifying how many. Trump added that he is prepared to send the military into D.C. “if needed,” a move some critics warn may be a prelude to the President declaring martial law, which involves military rule over a civilian population in times of crisis or emergency. Trump on Monday declared a “public safety emergency” in D.C., even though violent crime in the city is at a 30-year-low, and said that 800 National Guard members will soon be stationed in the city.

Trump's deployment of the National Guard in Washington, D.C. is a rare use of military forces on U.S. soil and a potential violation of the Posse Comitatus Act that restricts the military from being used as a police force for domestic law enforcement. During racial justice protests in June 2020, Trump sent uniformed National Guard troops to Lafayette Park in front of the White House to help clear the park of protestors. Earlier this summer, Trump ordered nearly 5,000 National Guard troops  to the Los Angeles area to quell immigration protests and protect federal agents.

Crime in D.C. is down 7% so far in 2025 compared to the year before, and down significantly more from a recent peak in 2023, according to city police data. Violent crime, in particular, is down by 26%, while property crime is down 4%. In 2024, crime in D.C. was down 15% compared to the year before.

But Trump has long painted a different picture, with the President describing Washington as “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World” in a post on Truth Social Saturday. On Sunday, Trump wrote, “I’m going to make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before. The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

Read more: The Secret Presidential Crisis Powers Trump Could Deploy in a Second Term

Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the President’s police takeover “unsettling and unprecedented” but added that she isn't “totally surprised” by the move. “I think I speak for all Americans—we don't believe it's legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil,” Bowser said at a press conference after Trump’s declaration. On MSNBC on Sunday, she said that Trump’s statements comparing the capital to a “war-torn country” are “hyperbolic and false.”

In a statement, the D.C. council warned that the National Guard has no public safety training or knowledge of local laws, and that its role does not include investigating or solving crimes. “Calling out the National Guard is an unnecessary deployment with no real mission,” the statement said, referring to Trump’s move as a “manufactured intrusion on local authority.”

Trump’s takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department comes four years after the department’s officers were violently attacked by Trump supporters on Jan. 6, 2021. More than 140 police officers were injured during the seven hours that a mob laid siege to the Capitol demanding Congress overturn the results of the 2020 election. When Trump took office, he pardoned many rioters who had been convicted of assaulting D.C. police officers defending the Capitol building and lawmakers inside.

Since Washington, D.C. does not have statehood, the President of the United States has broad leeway to deploy the National Guard. Democrats have often criticized Trump for not calling the National Guard to stop the violent attacks on Jan. 6, 2021. Trump has claimed without evidence that he did authorize sending the National Guard to the Capitol that day.

Soon after Trump’s announcement on Monday, several hundred people had gathered outside the White House to protest Trump’s plans to take federal control of the police department.

Bowser, said on MSNBC on Sunday that Trump’s statements comparing the capital to a “war-torn country” are “hyperbolic and false.” According to city police data, violent crime in D.C. is down by 26% so far in 2025 compared to the year before.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat and minority leader, excoriated Trump’s move on social media. "Violent crime in Washington, D.C. is at a thirty-year low," he wrote. "Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order. Get lost."

Several Democrats on Monday said they would introduce legislation to address Trump’s announcement, including one measure by D.C.’s non-voting delegate Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton and Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen that would repeal the president’s authority to take temporary control of the D.C police and give the city’s mayor authority over the D.C. National Guard. The measure faces an uphill battle in the Republican-controlled Congress.

Trump’s focus on public safety in the capital comes after former U.S. DOGE Service software engineer Edward Coristine, who is known by the nickname “Big Balls,” was injured during an alleged carjacking in DC early in the morning on Aug. 3. Two 15-year-old suspects were arrested in connection to the incident.

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. Attorney for Washington, D.C., said that she wants to “change the law” so that early teens can be prosecuted as adults, claiming that juvenile offenders face little consequences in D.C., where the prosecution of juveniles is handled by the locally elected attorney general. “I can't touch you if you're 14, 15, 16, 17 years old and you have a gun,” she said. “They go to family court and they get to do yoga and arts and crafts. Enough. It changes today.”