Trump extends power with D.C. police takeover

What happened

National Guard troops and federal agents were deployed on the streets of Washington, D.C., this week, after President Trump placed the district's police under federal control to tame a city he said had been "over-taken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of violent youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people." In an often-rambling 78-minute press conference—in which Trump also discussed "oceanfront property" in Ukraine and White House renovations—the president said some 500 federal law enforcement officers from numerous agencies had been "surged" into the capital and that 800 Guard officers had been called up to assist. Trump made the announcement just days after former top DOGE staffer Edward Coristine, 19, was brutally beaten during an alleged carjacking in the city; two 15-year-olds were arrested in connection with the crime. Under a 1973 law, the president can take over Washington's police for 30 days during emergencies; Trump said he would ask Congress for "extensions on that, long-term extensions." As well as vowing to rescue the city from "bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor"—and to let police "do whatever the hell they want"—Trump pledged to rid the capital of homeless encampments, but gave no details on where the residents might go.

D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the takeover "unsettling and unprecedented" and part of an "authoritarian push," noting the city's crime rates had dropped sharply since the pandemic and that violent crime was at a 30-year low. The Democrat said she would work with federal authorities but urged district residents to not let their children go out in big groups "because they will be a target." Trump's takeover was roundly hailed by Republicans. "President Trump is RIGHT," House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) wrote on X. "We can't allow crime to destroy our Nation's Capital."

Flanked at the press conference by Cabinet members, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump suggested more U.S. cities could soon face federal intervention. "We have other cities also that are bad," he said, citing New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Oakland, all in Democratic-led states. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Trump had "no legal ability to send troops into the city of Chicago" but that the president "doesn't follow the law." The Democrat added that the Nazis in the 1930s "tore down a constitutional republic in just 53 days," and that "we have a president who seems hell-bent on doing just that."

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What the editorials said

Cleaning up Washington "is a worthy task," said The Wall Street Journal, and if Trump succeeds "he'll deserve thanks." His nightmarish depiction of "D.C. as painted by Hieronymus Bosch" was over the top. But with 187 people murdered there last year and 1,026 assaulted with a dangerous weapon, the situation can be called an emergency, and local leadership is flailing. "Why should the president and Congress stand for this in America's seat of government?"

Trump's police takeover and Guard deployment are "political power moves," said the Miami Herald, ones "he will not hesitate to use on other cities." And "let's be clear"—that means cities run by Democrats. Memphis and St. Louis have higher murder rates than D.C., but Trump "sees blue crime only." Beset by sinking approval ratings, rising inflation, and his base's "rebellion over the Jeffrey Epstein case," he needs a distraction. "What's better than scaring Americans about rampant crime," and then claiming to have solved it?

What the columnists said

Are Democrats really defending "D.C.'s right to have a high crime rate?" said Byron York in Washington Examiner. There were 27 murders there for every 100,000 residents last year—down from about 40 in 2023, yes, but a dismal rate compared with Boston (3.7 per 100,000), New York (4.7), or Los Angeles (7.1). And numbers aside, crime is a pervasive quality-of-life issue in D.C., where many residents live "in a state of unease." All that's true, said Megan McArdle in The Washington Post, but Trump's not offering a real fix. A genuine effort might include hiring more police and getting tough on repeat offenders—not "political showmanship."

This isn't really about crime, said Jonathan Chait in The Atlantic. Trump is "the most pro-criminal president in American history." He's a convicted felon who has "surrounded himself with criminals," and who issued a blanket pardon to violent rioters who attacked police with baseball bats and stun guns on Jan. 6, 2021. What the D.C. scheme is really about is Trump's "lust to use the power of the state against his political enemies."

He's made the identity of one enemy clear, said David Rothkopf in The Daily Beast: "Black and brown communities." The racist dog whistling in his press conference was "ugly and unmistakable." Note his references to violent criminals and "the slums where they live," which he'd be "getting rid of." Or the "maniacs" assaulting visitors who "come from Iowa, they come from Indiana." Between his militarization of ICE and his D.C. takeover, the president has effectively "declared war on the people of color of America."

Amid Trump's steady assault on America's guardrails and institutions, "this feels like the most dangerous escalation yet," said Will Bunch in The Philadelphia Inquirer. Start with the fabricated depiction of a "Clockwork Orange–type dystopia." Add a "militaristic show of force" and the targeting of a Democratic, Black majority city "and it smacks of straight-up fascism." Trump keeps testing the limits to see what he can get away with. This is the greatest test yet, and "we need to be clear-eyed about what this is. Not a distraction. Dictatorship."

What next?

The Trump administration is drawing up plans for a National Guard strike force that would respond to "unrest" in U.S. cities, said Alex Horton and David Ovalle in The Washington Post. Internal documents detail plans for a "Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force," made up of 600 troops split between military bases in Alabama and Arizona. They would be on standby and ready to "deploy in as little as one hour," according to the documents, which "contain extensive discussion about the potential societal implications" of such a program. With his Guard deployments in Los Angeles and now Washington, Trump is inching toward "what seems to be his desired outcome," said Aaron Blake in CNN.com: "a fuller militarization of the homeland." It's the exact scenario numerous top generals and military officials who served in Trump's first Cabinet warned about. Rattled by Trump's expressed desire to use the military against U.S. citizens, they "cast this as a line that is not to be crossed," and expressed fear that one day "Trump would indeed cross it."