President Donald Trump will deploy the National Guard, take control of the police force, and assign FBI agents to fight street crime as he attempts another power grab in Washington, D.C.
Despite crime falling in the nation’s capital, the president said on Tuesday that he wants to “liberate” the district from crime, vowing to allow police to “do whatever the hell they want” if provoked.
“You spit, and we hit—and they get hit real hard,” Trump said, insisting that crime in Washington is worse than the streets of Baghdad, Mexico City, and Bogota, Colombia.
Under the plan, Attorney General Pam Bondi would be put in charge of the Metropolitan Police Department, which is currently run by the D.C. mayor’s office and the chief of police.
Trump has also declared a public safety national emergency, asked unhoused residents to leave, and pledged a much broader army presence. He has not ruled out deploying the Army to other cities.
“It’s become a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” Trump said, flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Attorney General Pam Bondi, FBI director Kash Patel, Interior Minister Doug Burgam and former Fox News host turned DC Attorney General Jeanine Pirro.
“It’s time for dramatic action.”
The move puts Trump one step closer to something he has touted for years: “federalizing” Washington by consolidating political and bureaucratic power over all tiers of government.
But the move is likely to prove contentious, with DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has been at pains not to agitate Trump since he returned to the White House, pointing out that crime is actually falling.
According to the latest police figures, crime in DC has fallen by 26 per cent overall this year. Homicides are down 12 per cent compared to 2024; robberies are down 28 per cent and assault with a deadly weapon has fallen by 20 per cent.
“We are not experiencing a spike in crime; in fact we are watching our crime numbers go down,” Bowser told MSNBC this weekend.
Trump’s announcement is the first time he has appeared with Bondi since the fallout from the Epstein scandal escalated last month.
Critics have also noted that Trump himself is a convicted felon, after being found guilty last year of 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up a sex scandal with a porn star.
His announcement comes as the White House considers re-classifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug - something that could send mixed messages in view of the president’s vow to crack down on drugs and crime in DC.
But tensions escalated last week after one-time DOGE operative, Edward “Big Balls” Coristine was violently bashed at Dupont Circle at around 3 am on August 3 - an assault Trump highlighted to justify his latest push to take over the city.
Two suspects, a 15-year-old male and a 15-year-old female, have so far been arrested and charged with unarmed carjacking, and photos of another person of interest has been released by police.
After the assault last week, Trump ordered a range of federal law enforcement agencies to deploy onto DC streets over the weekend.
Among them were officers from the Drug Enforcement Agency, the United States Capitol police, the Federal Protective Service, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
During his Monday morning press conference, Trump described DC as a city “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people”.
“Let me be crystal clear: crime in DC is ending today,” said Bondi, who has kept a low profile for the past few weeks. “We are going to use every power we have to fight criminals here.”
Pirro added that she wants to “change the law” to bring charges against youth criminal defendants, while Hegseth said members of the national guard will be “flowing” into the capital over the coming week.
