Trump puts DC police department under federal control, deploys National Guard

At an extraordinary news conference on Monday, President Donald Trump revealed plans to take over the Washington, D.C. police department and deploy National Guard troops in the nation’s capital to combat what he says is rampant violent crime that statistics show is actually decreasing.

“We’re here for a very serious purpose. Very serious, very,” Trump said. “Something’s out of control. But we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did in the southern border. I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”

He said he was declaring a public safety emergency in order to put the Washington police department under federal control and station the National Guard on the city’s streets.

Trump announced that Attorney General Pam Bondi will be taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department and DEA Administrator Terry Cole will be interim federal commissioner of the force.

He delivered his message standing beside Bondi, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, FBI Director Kash Patel and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum who will all play a role in the takeover Trump announced.

“Let me be crystal clear. Crime in D.C. is ending and ending today. We are going to use every power we have to fight criminals here,” Bondi said.

Hegseth said 800 National Guardsmen would be deployed to start. He later told Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that how long the Guard members are deployed is “the president’s call.”

The Defense secretary said the Guard would serve similar functions as those deployed to Los Angeles earlier this summer in reaction to anti-ICE protests. While they won’t be performing law enforcement functions, “They’re going to be proactive. If you take an action or a shot at them, there will be a consequence,” he said.

Trump said the capital “has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people,” and added that police “now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.”

Contrary to the president’s claim, preliminary year-to-date crime comparisons from Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department show that overall crime in D.C. has decreased by 7% since last year, with violent crime down 26% and property crime reduced by 5%.

He said the city’s homeless would be dealt with as well.

“We’re going to be removing homeless encampments from all over our parks, our beautiful, beautiful parks, which now a lot of people can’t walk on,” he said. “They’ve been very, very dirty, very — got a lot of problems. But we’ve already started that. We’re moving the encampments away, trying to take care of people. Some of those people, we don’t know how they even got there. And some of those people are from different countries, different parts of the world. Nobody knows who they are. They have no idea.”

He continued, “But they’re there getting rid of the people from underpasses and public spaces from all over the city. There are many places that they can go, and we’re going to help them as much as you can help. But they’ll not be allowed to turn our capital into a wasteland for the world to see,” he said.

“If our capital is dirty, our whole country is dirty and they don’t respect us,” he said, comparing Washington to other world cities.

House Judiciary Committee Ranking Democrat Rep. Jamie Raskin said he will be introducing a resolution to reverse what he called “this plainly ridiculous” state of local emergency and “restore full home rule powers to the Mayor, Council and people of the District of Columbia.”

Washington Mayor Muriel Boswer, a Democrat, responded Monday afternoon that “we’re at a 30 year violent crime low,” adding, “while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised.”

The president promoted the news conference in multiple posts on his social media platform and on Sunday posted that it would “also be about Cleanliness and the General Physical Renovation and Condition of our once beautiful and well maintained Capital.”

In a separate post, Trump said the homeless should leave D.C., accompanied by photos of homeless encampments along his route from the White House to his golf club in Sterling, Virginia.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital,” Trump wrote. “The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong.”

The news conference comes after Trump last week ordered an increase in law enforcement as part of an executive order he signed in March to “Make the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful.”

A White House official said the law enforcement effort a “whole of government approach to improve overall public safety” and said that law enforcement will “be focused on high traffic tourist areas and other known hotspots.”

The official added that federal officers “will be identified, in marked units, and highly visible.”

Trump said Sunday that he has given D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser an opportunity to reduce crime rates but she has failed to do that.

“The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive. The American Public is not going to put up with it any longer,” he claimed.

Bowser said Sunday that Washington has spent the last two years driving down violent crime, “driving it down to a 30 year low, in fact.”

“It is true that we had a terrible spike in crime in 2023, but this is not 2023, this is 2025 and we’ve done that by working with the community, working with the police, working with our prosecutors, and, in fact, working with the federal government,” Bowser told MSNBC.

On Saturday, Trump said the nation’s capital has become “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.”

Last week, he threatened to deploy the National Guard to D.C. and, as he has on several occasions since he was inaugurated in January, suggested that there should be a federal takeover.

That call came after Edward Coristine, a former Department of Government Efficiency employee, was beaten after he tried to break up a carjacking in D.C.

The seven-day law enforcement effort is being led by the U.S. Park Police but includes personnel from the Metro Transit Police Department, Amtrak Police Department, United States Capitol Police, Washington’s Metro Police Department, Homeland Security Investigations, Federal Protective Service, Enforcement and Removal Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, United States Marshals Service, United States Attorney’s Office-District of Columbia, Department of Interior, Pre-Trial Services Agency, Court Services and Offender Supervision Agency (CSOSA), the White House official said.