The president last week ordered federal law enforcement officers to patrol the city
President Donald Trump announced Monday that he is deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under federal control as he works to “reestablish law, order, and public safety” in the nation’s capital.
“I’m officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know what that is, and placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control,” Trump said during a White House news conference, adding, “I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order, and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly.”
Trump said the move will “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor,” declaring, “This is Liberation Day in D.C. And we’re going to take our capital back.”
🚨 President Trump announces he is invoking the D.C. Home Rule Act to place the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control and deploy the National Guard.
“This is Liberation Day in D.C. — and we’re going to take our capital BACK.” pic.twitter.com/aqov60mrCW
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 11, 2025
The announcement comes as Trump cracks down on longstanding crime problems in the nation’s capital. While crime in the district has fallen since last year, when the city council reversed its stance on criminal justice reform and passed a tough-on-crime bill, the district has long battled high rates of violent crime and saw spikes as recently as 2023, with homicides up 35 percent, robberies up 67 percent, and carjackings up 82 percent that year.
On Thursday, the Trump administration ordered federal law enforcement officers to patrol D.C.’s “high traffic tourist areas and other known hotspots” for at least a week. Two days earlier, Trump threatened to put the entire District of Columbia under federal control, as the Constitution permits, after a mob of young assailants on Sunday brutally beat up a former Department of Government Efficiency employee during an attempted hijacking.
Trump during the Monday announcement reiterated that crime is “out of control” in D.C. and vowed to “put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border.” In late January, Trump deployed thousands of active-duty troops to the southern border to rein in illegal immigration, which surged under the Biden administration. One month after Trump’s second inauguration, migrant encounters at the border dropped to the lowest level since 2017.
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