President Donald Trump announced on Monday that his administration is taking back control of Washington, D.C., by returning policing control to federal control after decades of city government failure.
Trump signed an executive order invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act, which allows his administration to take control of D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department. Along with invoking Section 740, he declared a pubic safety emergency in the nation’s capital. He also signed a memorandum to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directing him to mobilize the D.C. National Guard to help clean up crime in the city.
About 800 National Guard troops have been deployed so far, and mechanisms are in place to deploy more and request some from state governors, should the need arise.
In a press conference announcing the move, Trump described how the city — which should be a center of pride for the American people, a place citizens can visit safely without the scourge of homeless encampments and fentanyl overdoses at every public park — has been overrun by violent criminals.
Law-abiding citizens get “mugged, and raped, and shot, and killed,” and, under the weak D.C. government, are forced to endure car-jackings and other crimes with barely any law enforcement intervention and a completely hollow justice system.
“Our capital city,” Trump said, “has been overtaken by violent gangs and blood-thirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people, and we’re not going to let it happen anymore.”
Over the weekend, a massive group of young degenerates terrorized residents of Navy Yard, launching fireworks, riding dirt bikes, and intimidating law-abiding citizens. A teenager allegedly shot a gun at a group of other teenagers in the area.
As anyone who lives, works, or recreates in the nation’s capital knows, intimidation and violence like this are commonplace. Trump called the situation “embarrassing.”
“Caravans of mass youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day,” Trump said, noting they travel on ATVs and dirt bikes. “They love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there in uniform. They’re standing, and they’re screaming at them an inch away from their face, and then they start spitting in their face. And I said, ‘You tell them, you spit and we hit,’ and they can hit real hard. It’s a disgusting thing.”
The memo to Hegseth iterated many of the issues Trump pointed to during a press conference at the White House.
“The local government of the District of Columbia has lost control of public order and safety in the city, as evidenced by the two embassy staffers who were murdered in May, the Congressional intern who was fatally shot a short distance from the White House in June, and the Administration staffer who was mercilessly beaten by a violent mob days ago,” the memo states. “Citizens, tourists, and staff alike are unable to live peacefully in the Nation’s capital, which is under siege from violent crime. It is a point of national disgrace that Washington, D.C., has a violent crime rate that is higher than some of the most dangerous places in the world.”
Trump said it is his duty to “ensure that all citizens can avail themselves of the right to interact with their elected representatives, and that the Federal Government can properly function, without fear of being subjected to violent, menacing street crime.”
In the press briefing, he said this was a “constitutional right.”
“Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR,” Trump said in a social media post prior to the press conference. “I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!!”
One key contributor to D.C.’s lawlessness is the local government’s implementation of “no-cash bail.” Trump said that under such a system “somebody murders somebody, and they’re out on no cash bail before the day is out.”
He said his administration will work with Congress to overrule the city government to get rid of no-cash bail. Trump also noted that “nearly 70 percent of criminals arrested” in D.C. in 2022 “went unprosecuted.”
Attorney General Pam Bondi, who is ultimately in charge of overseeing many of the reform efforts through her deputies, said, “No more crime rampant in our beautiful capital. No more teenage girls beating a disabled man to death. No more of that. No more drive-bys.”
Brian Schwalb, the totally incompetent D.C. attorney general, complained about the move to save the city from the destruction he has allowed, stating, “The Administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful.”
Calling out Schwalb directly, U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro said that under his oversight, violent criminals can attempt to murder someone and only get probation, or savagely beat someone and “go to family court, and they get to do yoga and arts and crafts. Enough, it changes today.”
The blame cannot be placed totally at the feet of Schwalb, who has only served in his position since 2023. But D.C. has been a crime-ridden slum for decades, and while he and the other pro-crime officials in the city government claim the city is at a 30-year low for violent crime, the bar was never high to begin with — not to mention the fact that Americans have the right to expect that their national capital to be one of the best in the world.
Last month, a D.C. police commander was suspended for allegedly forging crime statistics.
According to statistics from the Trump administration, D.C. has a higher murder rate than many other national capitals, including in third-world countries.
“The magnitude of the violent crime crisis places the District of Columbia among the most violent jurisdictions in the United States. In 2024, the District of Columbia averaged one of the highest robbery and murder rates of large cities nationwide,” Monday’s executive order states. “Indeed, the District of Columbia now has a higher violent crime, murder, and robbery rate than all 50 States, recording a homicide rate in 2024 of 27.54 per 100,000 residents. It also experienced the Nation’s highest vehicle theft rate with 842.4 thefts per 100,000 residents — over three times the national average of 250.2 thefts per 100,000 residents. The District of Columbia is, by some measures, among the top 20 percent of the most dangerous cities in the world.”
Along with the much-needed law enforcement effort, Trump is also launching a “beautification” initiative.
“I don’t like being up here talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital was. With graffiti all over the walls — it’s another part of it, by the way, because we’re talking about safety, we’re also talking about beautification,” Trump said. “We have the most beautiful — potentially — capital in the world; we always had. But people come from Iowa, they come from Indiana, they come, and then they get mugged — not going to happen. Keep coming, because … by the time you get your trip set, it’s going to be safe again and it’s going to be clean very quickly.”
Trump noted road restoration, cleaning up homeless encampments, and other beautification efforts, stating, “not only are we stopping the crime, we’re going to clean up the trash, and the graffiti, and the grime, and the dirt, and the broken marble panels, and all of the things they’ve done to hurt this city, and we’re going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be.”