President Donald Trump announced Monday that the federal government will take over law enforcement in Washington and deploy National Guard troops in the nation’s capital, in order to combat what he says is “rampant violent crime;” despite data showing crime has actually declined in the city in recent years.
Surrounded by Attorney General Pam Bondi, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, U. S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro, FBI Director Kash Patel and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Trump announced in a press conference that the administration intends to crack down on violent crime, and was declaring a public safety emergency in order to put the Washington police department under federal control.
The President signed an executive order declaring crime an emergency in Washington and stated he would be invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act. He said the D.C. National Guard will deploy to fight crime, and he said he may deploy units from other states if needed. The President added that AG Bondi will be taking command of the Metropolitan Police Department, and DEA Administrator Terry Cole will be interim federal commissioner of the force.
Trump said during the press conference: “We’re here for a very serious purpose. Very serious, very. Something’s out of control. But we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did in the southern border. 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 D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back … 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 … 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,” adding later that about 800 guardsmen would be called up.
Hegseth said the National Guard was formally mobilized Monday 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.”
Metro police data released this month said violent crime rates have continued to fall in 2025, with violent crime down 26% year-over-year. Homicide rates have dropped 12%, sex abuse by 49%, assault with a dangerous weapon by 20% and robbery by 28%. However, Trump said that the administration was examining a person who claimed he was asked to falsify data: “And we had a recent indication, and there was a story about a man who just left. He quit because he was asked to do phony numbers on crime, and we’re going to look into that. I think Pam [Bondi] is going to be looking into that, but he was asked by the city, I guess we don’t want to show the real numbers. Let me do numbers so it looks like it’s going down, not going down, and under Biden, it was a disaster, and nobody did anything about it. We’re going to do things about it like you wouldn’t believe.”
Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called Trump’s directive “unsettling and unprecedented” but said the city would cooperate with the administration to the extent that the law allows. Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland said he plans to introduce a bill to undo Trump’s order, calling it “a textbook authoritarian maneuver.”
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