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US President Donald Trump said overnight he was deploying 800 National Guard troops to Washington and temporarily taking over the city’s police department, an extraordinary assertion of presidential power in the nation’s capital.
Trump’s move, which bypassed the city’s elected leaders, was emblematic of his second-term approach, which has seen him wield executive authority in ways with little precedent in modern US history and in defiance of political norms.
The president cast his actions as necessary to “rescue” Washington from a purported wave of lawlessness.
Statistics show that violent crime shot up in 2023 but has been rapidly declining since.
“Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,” Trump told a news conference at the White House.
And Trump signalled that other major US cities with Democratic leadership could be next, including Chicago, a city that has long been beset by violent crime, although it was down significantly in the first half of the year.
“If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” Trump said at the White House, adding, “Hopefully L.A. is watching.”
Trump has shown particular interest in taking over Washington, which is under the jurisdiction of Congress but exercises self-governance under a 1973 US law.
Hundreds of officers and agents from more than a dozen federal agencies, including the FBI, ICE, DEA and ATF, have fanned out across the city in recent days. Attorney General Pam Bondi will oversee the police force takeover, Trump said.
The US Army said the National Guard troops would carry out a number of tasks, including “administrative, logistics and physical presence in support of law enforcement.” Between 100 and 200 of the troops would be supporting law enforcement at any given time.
The Democratic mayor of Washington, Muriel Bowser, has pushed back on Trump’s claims of unchecked violence, saying the city is “not experiencing a crime spike” and highlighting that violent crime hit its lowest level in more than three decades last year.
Violent crime, including murders, spiked in 2023, turning Washington into one of the nation’s deadliest cities. However, violent crime dropped 35 per cent in 2024, according to federal data, and it has fallen an additional 26 per cent in the first seven months of 2025, according to city police.
The city’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, called Trump’s actions “unprecedented, unnecessary and unlawful” in an X post, and said his office was “considering all of our options.”
Bowser did not immediately comment on Trump’s announcement, though other Democrats weighed in.
“Donald Trump has no basis to take over the local police department. And zero credibility on the issue of law and order. Get lost,” House of Representatives Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries wrote on X.
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