Trump’s Washington D.C. takeover begins as Nationwide Guard troops arrive

A number of the 800 Nationwide Guard members deployed by President Donald Trump started arriving within the nation’s capital on Tuesday (August 12, 2025) ramping up after the White Home ordered federal forces to take over town’s police division and scale back crime in what the president referred to as — with out substantiation — a lawless metropolis.

The inflow got here the morning after Mr. Trump introduced he could be activating the guard members and taking on the division. He cited against the law emergency — however referred to the identical crime that metropolis officers stress is already falling noticeably. The President holds the authorized proper to make such strikes for no less than a month.

Mayor Muriel Bowser pledged to work alongside the federal officers Mr. Trump has tasked with overseeing town’s legislation enforcement, whereas insisting the police chief remained in control of the division and its officers.

“How we obtained right here or what we take into consideration the circumstances — proper now we now have extra police, and we need to ensure we use them,” she advised reporters.

The tone was a shift the day earlier than, when Bowser mentioned Mr. Trump’s plan to take over the Metropolitan Police Division and name within the Nationwide Guard was not a productive step and argued his perceived state of emergency merely doesn’t match the declining crime numbers. Nonetheless, the legislation offers the federal authorities extra sway over the capital metropolis than in U.S. states, and Bowser mentioned her administration’s capacity to push again is restricted.

Lawyer Common Pam Bondi, in the meantime, referred to as the Tuesday morning assembly productive in a social media publish and mentioned the Justice Division would “work intently with the D.C. metropolis authorities” to “make Washington, D.C., secure once more.”

Whereas Mr. Trump invokes his plan by saying that “we’ll take our capital again,” Bowser and the MPD preserve that violent crime general in Washington has decreased to a 30-year low after a pointy rise in 2023. Carjackings, for instance, dropped about 50% in 2024 and are down once more this yr. Greater than half of these arrested, nonetheless, are juveniles, and the extent of these punishments is a degree of competition for the Trump administration.

Bowser, a Democrat, spent a lot of Mr. Trump’s first time period in workplace overtly sparring with the Republican president. She fended off his preliminary plans for a army parade by means of the streets and stood in public opposition when he referred to as in a multi-agency flood of federal legislation enforcement to confront anti-police brutality protesters in summer season 2020. She later had the phrases “Black Lives Matter” painted in big yellow letters on the road a few block from the White Home.

In Mr. Trump’s second time period, backed by Republican management of each homes of Congress, Bowser has walked a public tightrope for months, emphasizing widespread floor with the Trump administration on points such because the profitable effort to convey the NFL’s Washington Commanders again to the District of Columbia.

She watched with open concern for town streets as Trump lastly obtained his army parade this summer season. Her resolution to dismantle Black Lives Matter Plaza earlier this yr served as a neat metaphor for simply how a lot the facility dynamics between the 2 executives had advanced.

Now that fraught relationship enters uncharted territory as Trump has adopted by means of on months of what many D.C. officers had quietly hoped had been empty threats. The brand new standoff has solid Bowser in a sympathetic mild, even amongst her longtime critics.

“It is a energy play and we’re a simple goal,” mentioned Clinique Chapman, CEO of the D.C. Justice Lab. A frequent critic of Bowser, whom she accuses of “over policing our youth” with the latest expansions of Washington’s youth curfew, Chapman mentioned Trump’s newest transfer “isn’t about making a safer D.C. It is nearly energy.”

Bowser contends that every one the facility resides with Trump and that her administration can do little apart from comply and make the perfect of it. So long as Washington stays a federal enclave with restricted autonomy below the 1973 House Rule Act, she mentioned, it’s going to stay weak to such takeovers.

“We all know that entry to our democracy is tenuous,” Bowser mentioned. “That’s the reason you could have heard me, and plenty of many Washingtonians earlier than me, advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia.”

Part 740 of the House Rule Act permits the president to take over Washington’s police for as much as 30 days throughout occasions of emergencies. No president has accomplished so earlier than, mentioned Monica Hopkins, government director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s D.C. chapter.

“That ought to alarm everybody,” she mentioned, “not simply in Washington.”

For Mr. Trump, the hassle to take over public security in Washington displays an escalation of his aggressive method to legislation enforcement. The District of Columbia’s standing as a congressionally established federal district offers him a novel alternative to push his tough-on-crime agenda, although he has not proposed options to the foundation causes of homelessness or crime.

“Let me be crystal clear,” Lawyer Common Pam Bondi mentioned throughout Mr. Trump’s announcement information convention. “Crime in D.C. is ending and ending as we speak.”

Mr. Trump’s declaration of a state of emergency suits the overall sample of his second time period in workplace. He has declared states of emergency on points starting from border safety to financial tariffs, enabling him to primarily rule by way of government order. In lots of instances, he has moved ahead whereas the courts sorted them out.

Bowser’s claims about efficiently driving down violent crime charges obtained backing earlier this yr from an unlikely supply. Ed Martin, Trump’s authentic alternative for U.S. lawyer for the District of Columbia, issued a press launch in April hailing a 25% drop in violent crime charges from the earlier yr.

“Because of the management of President Trump and the efforts of our ‘Make D.C. Secure Once more’ initiative, the District has seen a major decline in violent crime,” Martin mentioned. “We’re proving that sturdy enforcement, and sensible insurance policies could make our communities safer.”

In Could, Mr. Trump deserted his efforts to get Martin confirmed for the publish within the face of opposition in Congress. His alternative candidate, former decide and former Fox Information host Jeanine Pirro, was lately confirmed. On Monday, Pirro — standing subsequent to Trump — referred to as his takeover “the step that we want proper now to make criminals perceive that they don’t seem to be going to get away with it anymore.”

Revealed – August 12, 2025 11:55 pm IST