President Donald Trump announced Monday his plan to activate hundreds of National Guard troops and federalize the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police Department to address violent crime in the nation’s capital.

“This is Liberation Day in DC, and we’re going to take our capital back. We’re taking it back under the authorities vested in me as the President of the United States,” the president told reporters in the White House press briefing room Monday morning. “I’m officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.”

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“In addition, I’m deploying the National Guard to help re-establish law order of public safety in Washington, DC, and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly,” he continued.

White House officials say that Trump will mobilize roughly 800 troops to assist DC Metropolitan Police with logistics, transportation, and guarding federal and law enforcement facilities. The troops will not have authority to make arrests but may potentially detain suspects until local law enforcement officials arrive on scene to make formal arrests.

Though city officials have touted a precipitous decline in violent crimes since the end of the coronavirus pandemic, including a 34% drop in 2024 and a 28% decrease across the first six months of this year, a D.C. police commander was suspended last month after accusing Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith and other top department brass of falsely manipulating crime statistics.

Trump doubled down on his threat to take over D.C. last week after Edward Coristine, a Department of Government Efficiency engineer who goes by the nickname “Big Balls,” was allegedly assaulted by juvenile offenders during a carjacking in Dupont Circle, a well-to-do neighborhood in the district.

His threat was accompanied by an order to increase federal law enforcement in D.C. from last Friday.

Before the attack on Coristine, Trump had signed a more formal executive order in March that created a task force for the administration and D.C. Council to collaborate on, among other policies, law enforcement, including immigration enforcement. The order also directed investment in the district’s police workforce and facilities, such as a forensic crime laboratory.

Trump has a complicated relationship with D.C., which welcomed his first term with widespread protests. 

At the same time, Trump’s threat to take over D.C. is curtailed by the district being governed by Article One of the Constitution and the District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973. 

Under that framework, the D.C. mayor and council oversee the district, but Congress has the right to review and repeal its laws and budget and appoint its judges. The most recent example of Congress reviewing and repealing a D.C. law, in 2023, also concerned crime. 

Trump’s threat to take over D.C. is not unprecedented. 

The last time the federal government effectively took over the district was in 1995, when former President Bill Clinton signed the Republican-endorsed District of Columbia Financial Responsibility and Management Assistance Act into law in response to then-Mayor Marion Barry. That legislation established the District of Columbia Financial Control Board, which managed the district’s finances until 2001.

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Trump’s action coincides with Congress declining to pass legislation addressing a funding shortfall of $1.1 billion that it introduced into D.C.’s budget with its continuing resolution, a stopgap spending measure to keep the federal government open beyond March.