Live Updates: Trump Orders National Guard to Washington, D.C., and Takeover of City’s Police

 

Live Updates: Trump Orders National Guard to Washington, D.C., and Takeover of City’s Police

 

President Trump said 800 National Guard troops would be assigned to the nation’s capital, and that the approach might be expanded to other cities. His description of crime in Washington did not match official statistics.

 

Updated

Aug. 11, 2025, 12:15 p.m. ET27 minutes ago

Eric Schmitt Campbell Robertson Katie Rogers and Chris Cameron Reporting from Washington

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2025/08/11/us/trump-news

 

Here’s the latest.

• President Trump significantly escalated his efforts to exert federal authority over the nation’s capital on Monday, saying that he was taking control of the city’s police department and deploying 800 National Guard troops to fight crime there. The president painted a dystopian picture of Washington — including “bloodthirsty criminals” and “roving mobs of wild youth” — that stood in sharp contrast to official figures showing violent crime in the city is at a 30-year low.
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• Mr. Trump said Attorney General Pam Bondi would oversee the federal takeover of the capital’s Metropolitan Police Department and, with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at his side, added that he was prepared to send the military into Washington “if needed.” He also threatened to expand such efforts to other cities, including Chicago, if they did not deal with crime rates he claimed were “out of control” during a White House news conference.
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• It was not immediately how long Mr. Trump’s takeover of policing in Washington would remain in place. He declared a public safety emergency and invoked a section of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act that grants him the authority to temporarily seize control of the department.
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• Charles Allen, a member of the District of Columbia Council who represents Capitol Hill, said that the president’s declaration of a public safety emergency was not grounded in reality. “He’s doing this because he can,” Mr. Allen said.
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Here’s what else to know:

• D.C. deployment: Unlike a state’s governor, the District of Columbia does not have control over its National Guard, giving the president broad leeway to deploy those troops. The Trump administration also plans to temporarily reassign 120 F.B.I. agents in Washington to nighttime patrol duties as part of the crackdown, according to people familiar with the matter. Read more ›
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• Dystopian claims: Mr. Trump’s most recent threats to take control of Washington came after a prominent member of the Department of Government Efficiency, his federal cost-cutting initiative, reported being beaten in an attempted carjacking. But on Monday he sought to lay out an even darker version of the city, overrun by violent crime and anarchy, that many who live in it are unlikely to recognize.
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• Familiar targets: In decrying crime as out of control in cities across the country, he listed familiar targets like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago but did not mention cities in Republican-led states with the highest murder rates: Memphis, St. Louis or New Orleans. He also ignored the most violent episode in Washington’s recent history: the Jan. 6, 2021, riot as the Capitol, where his supporters sought to stop the certification of the 2020 election he lost. Mr. Trump pardoned hundreds of rioters, many of whom had already been convicted of crimes and were serving sentences before being immediately released in January.
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• Other deployments: This summer, Mr. Trump deployed nearly 5,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles with orders to help quell protests that had erupted over immigration raids and to protect the federal agents conducting them. All but about 250 of those National Guard troops have since been withdrawn. And in his first term, Mr. Trump called up National Guard soldiers and federal law enforcement personnel to forcibly clear peaceful protests during the Black Lives Matter protests after the police killing of George Floyd in 2020.