Washington — President Trump said Monday that he is deploying members of the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and that the federal government has taken control of the D.C. police as part of a push to crack down on crime in the nation’s capital, despite data showing crime has declined in the city in recent years.
“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” Mr. Trump said at a news conference at the White House. “This is liberation day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”
Flanked by Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum, Attorney General Pam Bondi, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and FBI Director Kash Patel, Mr. Trump said he was officially enforcing Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973 and placing the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department “under direct federal control.” He said Bondi was taking control of the department immediately. He also said he was declaring a public safety emergency in the district.
“In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in D.C., and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly,” Mr. Trump said, adding later that about 800 guardsmen would be called up.
Hegseth said the Guard was formally mobilized Monday morning and would be “flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week.” In an accompanying executive order, Mr. Trump wrote that the deployment “shall remain in effect until I determine that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia.”
Violent crime in D.C. has been declining for the last year and a half after spiking in 2023, according to local police data. So far this year, robberies have dropped by 28% and overall violent crime is down 26%, as of Aug. 11. Last year, violent crime in the capital city hit its lowest level in more than 30 years, the Justice Department said.
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The president criticized what he called “phony numbers” on crime in D.C., saying the administration would “look into that.” And he said the crime issue “directly impacts the functioning of the federal government and is a threat to America, really.”
“We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is,” Mr. Trump said. “We’re not going to lose our cities over this.”
The president said the effort “will go further,” saying the administration is “starting very strongly with D.C.” and “we’re going to clean it up real quick.”
“It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” the president added. He called it “embarrassing” for him to be “up here talking about how unsafe and dirty and disgusting this once beautiful capital was,” ahead of his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
The president cited a number of high-profile crimes, including the alleged assault of a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer last week, who the president said was “savagely beaten by a band of roving thugs after defending a young woman from an attempted carjacking.” Shortly after the incident, the White House announced that it had boosted the presence of federal law enforcement in the district, as Mr. Trump threatened a federal takeover of the city.
Mr. Trump said a process had begun over the weekend to remove homeless encampments in the district. He noted that the Metropolitan Police Department and federal authorities would be supported by the 800 D.C. National Guardsmen and potentially “much more.”
“If necessary, we’re going to move servicemembers directly to joining the guardsmen,” Mr. Trump said.
In an executive order declaring a crime emergency in the district, the president determined that “special conditions of an emergency nature exist” that require the use of the MPD for federal purposes, including maintaining law and order, protecting federal buildings, monuments and other federal property and ensuring the “conditions necessary for the orderly functioning of the Federal Government.” The executive order directs the D.C. mayor to provide the services of the Metropolitan Police force for federal use “for the maximum period permitted under section 740 of the Home Rule Act.”
The law allows the president to require the D.C. mayor to provide “such services of the Metropolitan Police force as the President may deem necessary and appropriate” for a period of 48 hours, a deadline that can be extended by notifying Congress about the takeover and how much longer it is likely to continue. A House Oversight Committee spokesperson confirmed to CBS News that the panel had been notified by the president of the extension beyond 48 hours. The statute says the president can control the police department for up to 30 days, “unless the Senate and the House of Representatives enact into law a joint resolution authorizing such an extension.”
The moves come after the administration deployed about 450 federal law enforcement officers from a number of agencies across D.C. overnight Sunday. The president pledged in a social media post Sunday that he would “make our Capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Mr. Trump said on Truth Social. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don’t have to move out. We’re going to put you in jail where you belong. It’s all going to happen very fast, just like the Border.”
The president previously deployed the National Guard in Los Angeles amid heated protests over immigration raids in June. Mr. Trump also deployed the National Guard in June 2020 to D.C. to quell protests after the death of George Floyd.
In March, Mr. Trump signed an executive order establishing a “D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force.” He has said violent crime must be stopped in the District, claiming that it “has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.” D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on the characterization on MSNBC on Sunday, noting that violent crime is down.
“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” Bowser said.
The mayor said she has talked with Mr. Trump “repeatedly” about crime and that “the president is very aware of our efforts.” Bowser acknowledged Sunday that “the D.C. National Guard is the president’s National Guard, so that’s always his prerogative.” And she noted that “federal law enforcement is always on the street in D.C. and we always work cooperatively with them.”
In another post later Sunday, the president said 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,” Mr. Trump wrote. “Just like I took care of the Border, where you had ZERO Illegals coming across last month, from millions the year before, I will take care of our cherished Capital, and we will make it, truly, GREAT AGAIN! Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World.”
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a Democrat who represents the district in a nonvoting seat in the House, said Mr. Trump’s move to federalize D.C. police is a “historic assault on D.C. home rule,” calling it a “counterproductive, escalatory seizure of D.C.’s resources to use for purposes not supported by D.C. residents.”
contributed to this report.
