Trump to deploy National Guard to Washington DC to 're-establish law and order'
In a news briefing on Monday, the US president said he was 'deploying the National Guard to help re-establish law, order and public safety in Washington DC, and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly'.
Ahead of the news conference, Trump said on social media that the nation's capital would be 'LIBERATED today!' and that he would end the 'days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people'.
Trump compared the crime in the American capital with that in other major cities, saying Washington performs poorly on safety relative to the capitals of Iraq, Brazil and Colombia, among others.
Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.
'We're getting rid of the slums, too,' Trump said, adding that the US would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.
The president said he signed an executive order and presidential memorandum in the Oval Office before holding the briefing.
The move involves at least 800 federal law enforcement officials as well as the National Guard, raising fundamental questions about how an increasingly emboldened federal government will interact with its state and local counterparts.
It's alleged the plans involve 100 FBI agents, around 40 agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and officers from the Drug Enforcement Administration and Immigration and Customs.
In addition, Trump also said 'we will bring in the military if it's needed' but added 'I don't think we'll need it.'
In a social media post on Sunday, Trump emphasised the removal of Washington's homeless population, but it was unclear where the thousands of people would go.
'The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,' Trump wrote Sunday. 'We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital. The Criminals, you don't have to move out. We're going to put you in jail where you belong.'
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, said Trump's posts at the weekend depicted the district as 'one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the world" and that 'any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false'.
She questioned the effectiveness of using the Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the DC Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.
'I just think that's not the most efficient use of our Guard,' she said Sunday on MSNBC's 'The Weekend,' acknowledging it is "the president's call about how to deploy the Guard.'
The president criticised the district as full of 'tents, squalor, filth, and crime'.
He appears to have been set off by an attack on Edward Coristine, one of the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as DOGE.
Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.
'This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,' Trump said Wednesday.
He called Bowser 'a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.'
Bowser acknowledged that the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.
'None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said. 'We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we're watching our crime numbers go down.'
Trump has repeatedly suggested that the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities.
Doing so would require a repealing the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step which Trump said lawyers are examining, but it could face steep pushback.
Trump also spoke about his upcoming meeting with Vladamir Putin on Friday calling it "really a feel out meeting, a little bit".
The president said he was open to meeting the russian leader first and then a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy or a meeting with both together, but did not say he would push for a three-person meeting.
Trump said "Putin invited me to get involved' and even said he thought it was very respectful that Putin is coming to US territory for the meeting in Alaska, instead of insisting that Trump go to Russia.
He said he'll tell Putin that it's time to end Russia's war with Ukraine.
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