US President, Donald Trump has announced that he is placing the nation’s capital under direct federal control and will be sending in the US National Guard.
At a press conference, Trump said that he wants to rescue the nation’s capital “from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.” He announced that it was “liberation day” in DC, claiming a crime spree.
“I’m officially invoking Section 740, of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. You know what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.
“I’m deploying the National Guard to help re-establish law, order and public safety in Washington, DC. They’re going to be allowed to do their job properly.”
Donald Trump
Trump disclosed that 800 National Guard troops will be deployed and that the government “will bring in the military if needed.”
Trump said that under the newly declared “public safety emergency,” US Attorney General, Pam Bondi is taking control of Washington, DC’s Metropolitan Police Department.
The US President divulged that he signed an executive order and presidential memorandum in the Oval Office before holding the news conference.
One executive order invoked presidential powers under the Home Rule Act to take over Washington’s police force.
He also signed what the administration called statutorily required notification letters to DC Mayor Bowser and relevant congressional leaders.
Trump also signed a presidential memorandum directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to deploy the National Guard in the nation’s capital.
Hegseth compared sending the Guard into the nation’s capital to deployments to the southern US border and Los Angeles. “We will work alongside all D.C. police and federal law enforcement,” Hegseth said.
He asserted that the D.C. National Guard will be “flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week.” He also said the Pentagon was “prepared to bring in other National Guard units, other specialized units.”
While Washington, DC has for years grappled with high crime rates, violent crime has been on the decline since 2023.
The city’s crime rates in 2024 were already their lowest in three decades, according to figures produced by the Department of Justice before Trump took office.
Trump’s news conference comes after he surged federal law enforcement across the city last week, deploying agents from several federal agencies to work alongside the local Metropolitan Police Department.
In his press conference, Trump stated that the administration would consider taking similar steps in Los Angeles, New York and Chicago, as well as other cities, unless they did a “self-clean up” and criticized their local and state leadership.
Trump deployed the National Guard and the Marine Corps to respond to immigrant-rights protests in Los Angeles in June. Trump also deployed the National Guard to Washington, DC to respond to Black Lives Matter protests during his first term.
Trump has also taken aim at the homeless population in Washington, DC, saying that they must be cleared immediately. He offered no further information on where they would go.
Trump’s Move To Deploy US National Guard Criticised
Following Trump’s announcement, civil rights leader, Rev. Al Sharpton warned of the move’s potential long-term repercussions.
Sharpton said in a statement that Trump was “inspired to take this disgusting, dangerous, and derogatory action solely out of self interest.”
“Let’s call the inspiration for this assault on a majority Black city for what it is: another bid to distract his angry, frustrated base over his administration’s handling of the Epstein files.”
Rev. Al Sharpton
Sharpton also stressed that D.C.’s leadership must push back on the US President’s use of Washington D.C. and its residents as “political props.”
“We cannot, nor will we, take this lying down. Threatening to hit if people spit, calling all Black and low-income neighborhoods slums, and throwing away the humanity of homeless people by equating them to criminals is the beginning of the end if we don’t stand up.
“This is the ultimate affront to justice and civil rights many of us have dedicated our lives to protecting and expanding.”
Rev. Al Sharpton
Also, District of Columbia Attorney General, Brian Schwalb called Trump’s move to take over the city’s police department “unnecessary and unlawful,” saying that crime is not an emergency levels.
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