Last week an attack on a former DOGE employee led President Trump to suggest it might be time to “federalize” Washington, DC. Yesterday he announce a press conference on “Crime and ‘Beautification'” would be held today.
He never stops. pic.twitter.com/ro47GHyBvI
— Catturd ™ (@catturd2) August 10, 2025
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. It will soon be that again. Thank you for your attention to this matter — See you tomorrow at 10 A.M.!
This morning there were some additional posts about the press conference.
And as promised, Trump declared an emergency this morning and said he was taking control of the DC police and sending in the National Guard.
President Donald Trump on Monday announced he will deploy approximately 800 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., and federalize the city’s police in an effort to fight crime.
The moves mark a significant escalation in the president’s attacks on the nation’s capital. Trump on Sunday claimed the district was “one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World,” although the Justice Department said that the crime rate fell to a 30-year-low last year.
The president also said that he would declare a public safety emergency in D.C. and that Attorney General Pam Bondi would “take command of the Metropolitan Police Department as of this moment.”
“When you walk down the street, you’re going to see police or you’re going to see FBI agents,” Trump said during a press availability Monday morning. “We’re going to have a lot of agents on the street. You’re going to have a lot of, essentially military. And we will bring in the military if it’s needed.”
The press conference was backed up by an executive order which was also announced this morning. Here’s a bit of what that said:
The magnitude of the violent crime crisis places the District of Columbia among the most violent jurisdictions in the United States. In 2024, the District of Columbia averaged one of the highest robbery and murder rates of large cities nationwide. Indeed, the District of Columbia now has a higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rate than all 50 States, recording a homicide rate in 2024 of 27.54 per 100,000 residents. It also experienced the Nation’s highest vehicle theft rate with 842.4 thefts per 100,000 residents — over three times the national average of 250.2 thefts per 100,000 residents. The District of Columbia is, by some measures, among the top 20 percent of the most dangerous cities in the world.
As President, I have a solemn duty to take care that our laws are faithfully executed, and a sacred responsibility to protect the safety and security of United States citizens who live in and visit our Nation’s capital, including Federal workers who live or commute into the District of Columbia. These conditions cannot persist. We will make the District of Columbia one of the safest cities in the world, not the most dangerous.
According to Politico, no one has ever invoked this section of the DC Home Rule charter, so this is new. President Trump can federalize the police for up to 30 days initially.
The Home Rule Act gives him the power to use the D.C. police force for “federal purposes” if he determines that there are “special conditions of an emergency nature.”
He can use the D.C. police for up to 48 hours, or for up to 30 days if he sends a special message to the leaders of certain congressional committees.
To use the D.C. police for longer than 30 days, he would need authorization from Congress.
So we’ll see how this goes. No doubt there is going to be a lot of pushback on this from Democrats, in part because Trump is bigfooting a Democratic city mayor. But beyond that, I suspect there are some people who worry this plan might actually work and if it does that would be an uncomfortable object lesson for the differences between Republican and Democratic governance. So I suspect Democrats are going to do all they can to brand this effort a failure because they really need it be one.
Here’s the full press conference featuring Trump, Hegseth, Bondi, Patel and Pirro talking about the plan to clamp down on crime and beautify the city.
