Outrage as Trump initiates federal takeover of Washington DC

SBS Australia

2 days ago

'Under the authorities vested in me as the President of the United States, I'm officially invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control. In addition, I'm deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington DC and they are going to be allowed to do their job properly.' It's not the first time Donald Trump and his allies have attempted to seize control of the US capital but this time things are a little different. The United States President has declared an emergency in Washington DC, deploying 800 soldiers to the city with the purported aim of addressing crime, cleanliness levels and homeless encampments. The move has not been received well by DC locals. "If they can strip the autonomy of the capital city, of a major city like Washington, DC, in broad daylight, if they can place us under military control without our consent, they will carry this playbook to every community that dares to push back in the United States of America. I need you to understand this right now." Mr Trump's declaration follows news that two 15-year-old suspects had allegedly assaulted and carjacked a 19-year-old former employee of Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency in Washington DC last week. Since then President Trump has painted Washington as a dangerous city in crisis and called for children aged 14 and up to be prosecuted as adults. "This is an emergency. This is a tragic emergency and it's embarrassing for me to be up here. I'm gonna see Putin, I'm going to Russia! I don't want to be talking about how unsafe and how dirty and disgusting this once-beautiful capital was." But how do President Trump's claims of a city plagued by violence and anarchy stack up with the data? Violent crime, including murders, spiked in 2023, and has since been rapidly falling, dropping 35 per cent in 2024, according to federal data. Statistics from the Metropolitan Police Department show this crime rate has fallen an additional 26 per cent in the first seven months of 2025 when compared with the year prior. Northeastern University professor of law Jeremy R Paul says Mr Trump is pushing the boundaries of his presidential powers. "You say crime is up, but all the statistics from the Department of Justice that you control say crime down. So your rationale is flimsy. I think it would be impossible to look at what's happening now and not see a pattern of a president pushing boundaries and trying to see how far he can go." The extraordinary assertion of presidential power in the nation's capital is the second time the Republican president has deployed troops to a Democratically governed city in recent months after sending thousands of National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles in June. The latest move has bypassed the city's elected leaders, with Mayor Muriel Bowser expressing her outrage. "We don't believe it's legal to use the American military against American citizens on American soil. I'm not a lawyer. But I think that's a fairly widely held fact. I'm going to work every day to make sure it's not a complete disaster. Let me put it that way. To maintain the trust that DC residents have in us." The city's attorney general, Brian Schwalb, has called Mr Trump's actions "unprecedented, unnecessary and unlawful" in a post on X. Professor Paul says there is some legal basis for the President's actions but the justification seems flimsy at best. "There is a federal statute, the Home Rule Act, that gives the president some authority over DC law enforcement when there's an emergency. I don't think there is an emergency and therefore I think that it would be possible to challenge his actions as illegal or unlawful, as not consistent with his authorisation. But I think it would be very unlikely for a court to tell the president, 'We don't agree with you about whether there is or isn't an emergency'. And remember, this only lasts for 30 days." Mr Trump says the federal takeover will also see the destruction or displacement homeless encampments across Washington DC to make the city more visually appealing. Flegette Rippy, a homeless person living in DC, says this is no way to address the homelessness crisis. "Give us a home, how about that? How about just giving people that need a home, inside. And then we'd be inside. You just want to just throw us to the rats. You never know why a person is homeless. I was rendered homeless because my house caught on fire. I have no place to be because the shelters are overrun. I don't know this man. I don't want to know him. All I know is he's a rich man pushing people with no money around." Another key element of President Trump's crackdown on crime is the federal takeover of the Washington police department, giving them nearly unrestricted powers. "They love to spit in the face of the police and they're (police are) not allowed to do anything. But now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want. You spit, and we hit. And they can hit real hard." The ease in which the Trump administration has been able to seize control of Washington D-C has concerned locals. 'Growing up in Washington it's very hard to see the city being captured by Donald Trump and making everybody live in fear. I don't approve of it and the backlash is going to be really severe against him and his administration. And that's why I don't feel safe in this city any longer because of what it's doing against its citizenry.' President Trump has shown particular interest in taking over Washington, which sits in the federal District of Columbia under the jurisdiction of Congress but exercises self-governance under a 1973 US law. Residents say this crisis has made them more aware of the need for statehood and protection from presidential powers. 'We are a really overpoliced city already, and I just feel like DC should be state, you know? We deserve representation just like people all over the country have. People's representatives from all other states are coming to Congress here, and we pay taxes just like anybody else.' Mayor Bowser agrees, saying residents deserve the same rights and protections available to other US citizens. 'We know that access to our democracy is tenuous. That is why you have heard me advocate for full statehood for the District of Columbia. We are American citizens. Our families go to war. We pay taxes, and we uphold the responsibilities of citizenship. And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we're totally surprised.' And President Trump has signalled that other major US cities with Democratic leadership could be next for a federal takeover, including Chicago, a city long been beset by violent crime, although it was down significantly in the first half of the year. "We're starting very strongly with DC and we're going to clean it up real quick. We're going to have tremendous success in what we're doing. But then I'm going to look at New York in a little while. Let's do this. Other cities are hopefully watching this. If they don't learn their lesson we're going to do the same thing in Chicago."