President Trump announced a sweeping crime crackdown in DC on Monday, placing the city’s police department under federal control and deploying the National Guard to patrol the streets — while warning New York City could be next.
“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 DC and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump told reporters at the White House.
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people. And we’re not going to let it happen anymore. We’re not going to take it.”
Trump vowed to “clean it up real quick,” “like we did on the southern border” with illegal immigration.
The Home Rule Act, which granted DC self-governance in 1973, allows the president to assert emergency control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for 30 days. Congress can pass a joint resolution extending his control, which would require a bare majority in the Republican-held House and Senate.
Documents formalizing the takeover were transmitted to Congress Monday afternoon and DC police officials set up a meeting later in the day with White House officials to discuss the new arrangement.
Terry Cole, the Senate-confirmed administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration, will temporarily lead the 3,400-officer MPD under the supervision of Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump said.
Tam Nguyen / NYPost.com, Getty Images
It was not immediately clear how the National Guard deployment will proceed — including numbers and neighborhoods where they will be sent — but members of that force historically assist law enforcement in a supporting role and do not have the ability to make arrests.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, in an interview on Fox News’ “The Ingraham Angle” Monday night, said Guardsmen from DC and “other states” would be deployed to the district “this week and in coming weeks” to act as “force multipliers” for local and federal law enforcement.
“They will be standing right alongside our federal agents, like they were in Los Angeles. They’re going to be proactive. If you take an action or a shot at them, there will be a consequence,” Hegseth told host Laura Ingraham.
The Pentagon chief added that the troops will be allowed to “interdict” and “temporarily detain” individuals if they see a crime in progress and local law enforcement isn’t nearby, “like we did in Los Angeles.”
Hegseth didn’t say how many National Guard members would be activated in DC, or how long they would be patrolling the streets, describing the length of their mission as “conditions-based.”
Justifying his action Monday morning, the president displayed a chart showing that DC has more murders per capita than the capital cities of cocaine-exporting Columbia, cartel-plagued Mexico, and terrorist hub Iraq.
“We doubled up on Baghdad,” Trump commented.
“You people are victims of it too. You are reporters and I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side. But you don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed. And you all know people, friends of yours, where that’s happened.”
Trump cited many high-profile recent crimes in the capital, including the Aug. 3 attack on former Department of Government Efficiency staffer Edward Coristine, 19, during an alleged attempted carjacking and the June 30 murder of congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym, 21, in a drive-by shooting.
Trump also mentioned the 2023 carjacking of Rep. Henry Cuellar (D-Texas), the near-fatal stabbing of an aide to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) the same year by a “demented lunatic” and the shooting death of a three-year girl in July.
The president described criminals lawlessly cruising about town on unauthorized ATVs and motorbikes and said he planned to beautify the District by fixing road medians, broken marble and potholes.
“We’re getting rid of the slums too…I know it’s not politically correct,” Trump said, teasing apparent plans to get rid of public housing in high-property-value DC.
“We’re getting rid of the slums where they live.”
Homeless encampments will also be removed from all public places, including in parks and underpasses, the president vowed, while the US Park Police — under the control of Interior Secretary Doug Burgum — will be responsible for the removal of graffiti.
DC officials say they won’t resist
District Mayor Muriel Bowser, an elected Democrat, confirmed Monday afternoon that she would comply with the federal takeover.
“I’m going to work every day to make sure it’s not a complete disaster, let me put it that way,” Bowser said at her own press conference, at which she called Trump’s move “unsettling and unprecedented.”
“The main point is this: Everybody should follow the law, the police and the community. And that’s the case now, it was the case last week and it was the case the week before,” she said.
The mayor added that she was particularly concerned about making sure that “all law enforcement be identifiable by uniform, a badge, a jacket, so that people know that they are law enforcement.”
Trump first ordered federal officials, including members of the FBI, DEA and Border Patrol, onto the streets of DC the night of Aug. 7-8. Photos circulating on social media and in the press showed those agents wearing clearly identifying uniforms.
MPD Chief Pamela Smith confirmed she had a meeting set for later Monday with two federal officials, whom she did not name, about next steps.
Smith added she was interested in receiving help to enforce outstanding warrants for criminal suspects, saying there are “things that the federal government is also very useful for.”
“This will be an opportunity for us to come together and collaborate on being able to go out and execute warrants,” the police chief said.
Ahead of Trump’s announcement, Bowser told MSNBC on Sunday that “we do need the federal government’s help” and specifically requested assistance rebuilding the city jail.
Bowser recently invoked curfews in parts of the city in a bid to keep teens off the street as early as 7 p.m., but also has claimed crime rates are going down in the city, pointing to official data.
Trump claimed Monday that the numbers were “phony” and promised that Bondi will be “looking into that.”
The president noted that DC police commander Michael Pulliam, whose district included the densely populated Adams Morgan and Columbia Heights neighborhoods, was suspended last month for allegedly falsifying crime data to make trends appear more positive.
Pulliam’s police union defended him and accused MPD leadership of ordering subordinates to falsify violent crime data.
DC Police Union chairman Gregg Pemberton endorsed Trump’s takeover, saying in a Fox News interview: “We completely agree with the president that crime in the District of Columbia is out of control and something needs to be done with it.”
New York, Chicago, LA in crosshairs
Trump announced at his press conference that other cities may be next, saying at one point that “I’m going to look at New York in a little while” — and also name-checking Chicago and Los Angeles.
“You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem,” Trump said.
“We’re starting very strongly with DC, and we’re going to clean it up real quick, very quickly as they say.”
Trump additionally announced plans for federal legislation that would override state laws barring judges from applying cash bail requirements to criminal defendants.
If necessary, Trump added, ordinary military members could be deployed to join the National Guard and the local cops.
The president has direct control over DC’s National Guard, unlike every other unit, which is under the authority of state governors.
“Washington, DC, should be one of the safest, cleanest and most beautiful cities anywhere in the world,” Trump summed up his plans, “and we’re going to make it that.”
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