Trump placing Washington police under federal control, deploying National Guard
Trump said at a Monday news briefing that he was 'deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law order and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they're going to be allowed to do their job properly.'
The Republican president compared 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.
'We're getting rid of the slums, too,' Trump said, adding that the U.S. would not lose its cities and that Washington was just a start.
For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects a next step in his law enforcement agenda after his aggressive push to stop illegal border crossings. But the move involves at least 500 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. Combating crime
The president has used his social media and White House megaphones to message that his administration is tough on crime, yet his ability to shape policy might be limited outside of Washington, which has a unique status as a congressionally established federal district. Nor is it clear how his push would address the root causes of homelessness and crime.
Trump said he is invoking Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to deploy members of the National Guard.
About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation's capital as part of the Trump administration's effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press on Monday.
More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal law enforcement personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are also contributing officers.
The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn't immediately have a comment Monday morning. Focusing on homelessness
Trump in a Sunday social media post had emphasized the removal of Washington's homeless population, though 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.'
Last week, the Republican president directed federal law enforcement agencies to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option 'to extend as needed.'
On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington.
Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was 'ridiculous' and the city was 'unsafe,' after the recent assault of a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency. The National Guard
Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, 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 D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.
Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.
'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.'
Bowser was making her first public comments since Trump started posting about crime in Washington last week. She noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023. Trump's weekend posts depicted the district as 'one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World.'
For Bowser, 'Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.' Crime statistics
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.
Trump offered no details in Truth Social posts over the weekend about possible new actions to address crime levels he argues are dangerous for citizens, tourists and workers alike. The White House declined to offer additional details about Monday's announcement.
The police department and the mayor's office did not respond to questions about what Trump might do next.
The president criticized the district as full of 'tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,' and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among 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.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Factbox-Russian energy export disruptions since start of Ukraine war
(Reuters) -When U.S. President Donald Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, one of his bargaining chips to encourage Putin to make progress toward a ceasefire in Ukraine will be to ease U.S. sanctions on Russia's energy industry and exports. Trump has also threatened tougher sanctions if there is no progress. Here is how sanctions have impacted Russian energy exports since the start of the conflict. NATURAL GAS AND LNG Russia was the top supplier of natural gas to Europe before the war. Most gas travelled through four pipeline routes: Nord Stream running under the Baltic Sea, the Yamal line crossing Poland, transit via Ukraine, and the Turkstream line. Europe also imports Russian liquefied natural gas (LNG). In 2021, total Russian gas imports to the EU totalled 150 billion cubic metres (bcm) per year, or 45% of its total imports, and have fallen to 52 bcm or 19% since, according to the European Commission. While the EU has not imposed sanctions on Russian pipeline gas imports, contract disputes and damage to Nord Stream caused by an explosion, have cut supplies. As part of a fresh round of sanctions announced in July, the European Union has now banned transactions including any provision of goods or services related to Nord Stream, which albeit damaged could be revived as a gas supply route. Transit via Ukraine ended at the end of 2024, leaving just Turkstream as a functioning route for Russian pipeline gas to Europe. The European Commission has also proposed a legally binding ban on EU imports of Russian gas and LNG by the end of 2027, but this has not been passed into legislation yet. The U.S. in 2024 imposed sanctions on companies supporting the development of Russia's Arctic LNG 2 project, which would become Russia's largest plant with an eventual output of 19.8 million metric tons per year. OIL The U.S., UK, and EU all prohibited the import of seaborne crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia during the first year of the war in Ukraine. In addition to the embargoes, the G7 group of countries (including the US, UK, and EU) imposed a price cap on Russian seaborne crude oil for third countries at $60 per barrel in December 2022, and a cap on fuels the following February. The EU and UK altered the crude price cap level in June 2025 to $47.60, or 15% below the average market price, but the U.S. did not back the move. The price cap aims to reduce Russia's revenues from oil sales by prohibiting shipping, insurance and reinsurance companies from handling tankers carrying crude traded above the cap level. Western powers have also imposed sanctions on more than 440 tankers belonging to the so-called shadow fleet that transports sanctioned oil outside of Western services and the price cap. Russia's leading shipper Sovcomflot is also under sanctions in the West. The U.S. has also sanctioned major Russian oil companies including Gazprom Neft and Surgutneftegaz. The measures banning Russian oil imports in the west and restricting Russian oil trade elsewhere have redirected Russian oil flows towards Asia, with China, India, and Turkey emerging as the major buyers for Russian crude. The price cap was meant to keep Russian oil flowing to prevent a spike in global oil prices which would have followed a halt or severe drop in Russian exports. Trump has, however, signalled a change in policy in recent weeks by threatening to impose secondary sanctions on India and China for buying Russian oil to put pressure on Putin to agree to a ceasefire in Ukraine. COAL The European Union banned imports of Russian coal in 2022, seeing volumes drop from 50 million metric tonnes in 2021 to zero by 2023, according to data from Eurostat.
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Trump and Putin Have Different Goals for Anchorage Summit
(Bloomberg) -- Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin will measure success at their summit in Alaska very differently, even as both leaders are already looking toward a second meeting. The US president sees any kind of ceasefire in Ukraine as a key objective of the talks. For the Russian leader, getting face time with Trump on American soil without having made any concessions on the war is already a win. The US-Canadian Road Safety Gap Is Getting Wider Festivals and Parades Are Canceled Amid US Immigration Anxiety To Head Off Severe Storm Surges, Nova Scotia Invests in 'Living Shorelines' Five Years After Black Lives Matter, Brussels' Colonial Statues Remain Princeton Plans New Budget Cuts as Pressure From Trump Builds Those are the contrasting stakes as both leaders head to Anchorage for their first summit since 2018 in Helsinki. The imbalance points to the perils and opportunities for Trump, who has long cast himself as the only one who can end the war. Putin has little incentive to stop the fighting as Russia's military slowly grinds out gains in Ukraine, but can ill afford to alienate a president with whom he's long cultivated a relationship. En route to Anchorage on Friday morning, Trump didn't rule out that Ukraine might get some form of security guarantees from western nations, or that it might have to agree to swap land with Russia. But he said it wasn't his place to decide. 'I've got to let Ukraine make that decision,' Trump said of the idea of the two countries trading land. 'And I think they'll make a proper decision. But I'm not here to negotiate for Ukraine. I'm here to get them at the table.' By invading Ukraine in 2022, Putin began Europe's biggest war for 80 years and became an international pariah. The summit with Trump helps him to chip away at the isolation the US and its Group of Seven allies have sought to impose on the Russian leader over his aggression. Even more symbolically potent is the decision to host the encounter at a military base, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, in the US. By that metric, Putin has scored a victory simply by showing up. The meeting also marks a repudiation of former President Joe Biden's approach of 'nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine,' a mantra that made sure Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy always had a seat at the table. 'Russia wants to continue to pursue its objectives, which are to dramatically weaken Ukraine and essentially undermine its independence and sovereignty,' Richard Haass, a former senior State Department official, said in an interview. 'So Russia sees negotiations not as an alternative to that, but as a means toward that end.' The perils for Trump account for the White House's strategy of tamping down expectations for the meeting. Trump described it as a 'feel-out meeting,' a message reinforced by White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, who called the summit 'a listening exercise for the president.' Trump is already looking ahead to a potential second summit that would include Zelenskiy — and perhaps European leaders — which he anticipated would be 'more productive than the first.' The Kremlin, anticipating that move, has invited Trump to come to Russia next. It's a far cry from Trump's boasts on the campaign trail that he could end the war within a day of taking office. In May, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said it was 'abundantly clear' that a breakthrough was only possible with involvement of Trump and Putin. The new framing gives Trump room to maneuver during the actual meeting, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private deliberations. That will allow him to make decisions in the moment as he relies on his instincts, which aligns with his preference for personal diplomacy over traditional bureaucratic deliberations. In one optimistic scenario, the two leaders could leave Alaska with an agreement to halt the fighting — at least temporarily or partially, for instance by agreeing to pause Russian air attacks. Trump could boost Putin's proposal to take Ukrainian territory that his forces have captured. Or they could come away with nothing at all, something Trump was happy to accept after he walked out of talks with North Korea's Kim Jong Un in 2019. Trump said in an interview with Bret Baier on Friday that if the meeting does not go well, 'I would walk,' according to Fox News. 'I think it's going to work out very well and if it doesn't, I'm going to head back home real fast,' he told Baier. For his part, Putin is eager to widen cracks between the US and Europe while seeking relief from sanctions that have crippled Russia's economic growth. The list of attendees reflects the importance both sides attach to the meeting. Trump will be joined by Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, as well as his CIA director, John Ratcliffe. There's a concern among governments in Europe that rather than focus on Ukraine's interests, the meeting could pivot to improving the US-Russia economic relationship. That might provide Putin a lifeline to continue the war, according to a European diplomat who asked not to be identified without authorization to speak to publicly. 'Once he gets into the room with Vladimir Putin, and Putin is able to make his case, I think he will be malleable, and the inclination will be to get along with Putin,' Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, told reporters on Thursday. 'I think a lot of the goodwill and agreement with the Europeans may very well go right out the door.' Trump told reporters on Air Force One he belived Putin would also include economic officials in his delegation. 'I noticed he's bringing a lot of business people from Russia, and that's good I like that because they want to do business,' Trump said. 'But they're not doing business until we get the war settled.' Putin brings his longtime foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, as well as his defense and finance ministers. That suggests Russia wants to discuss the potential for increased economic cooperation — an idea that appeals to Trump. Trump and Putin are expected to speak alone ahead of a lunch with their delegations and a joint press conference is planned afterward. That raises the specter of a repeat of the now-infamous news conference in Helsinki where Trump publicly sided with Putin in rejecting US intelligence assessments that Russia had meddled in the 2016 presidential election. --With assistance from Hadriana Lowenkron. (Updates with Trump comment in 17th paragraph. A previous version of this story corrected that Vice President JD Vance is not expected to attend the summit.) Americans Are Getting Priced Out of Homeownership at Record Rates What Declining Cardboard Box Sales Tell Us About the US Economy Bessent on Tariffs, Deficits and Embracing Trump's Economic Plan Dubai's Housing Boom Is Stoking Fears of Another Crash Twitter's Ex-CEO Is Moving Past His Elon Musk Drama and Starting an AI Company ©2025 Bloomberg L.P.
Yahoo
19 minutes ago
- Yahoo
What are President Trump's approval ratings? See what Indiana thinks of his performance
President Donald Trump's approval ratings nationally are in the red, but in about half of the states, including Indiana, more people approve than disapprove of his job performance. While Trump's approval rating nationally remains historically low, a look at state-by-state survey results show a more complicated picture. Here is what we know: Trump has positive approval rating in 27 states Trump's approval rating is above water in 27 states, according to an Aug. 12 update from Morning Consult, which gathers polls over the course of three months to get a look at state-level data among registered voters. The number of states who approve of Trump is unchanged from July's update. Morning Consult found that Trump is most popular in Wyoming, where 66% of voters approve of his job performance, and least popular in Vermont, where 64% disapprove. His approval is net negative in two states with gubernatorial races this fall: New Jersey and Virginia, according to Morning Consult. In Texas, 53% of voters approve of Trump's performance while 44% disapprove. In California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom has threatened to counter changes in Texas' redistricting plan, 41% approve of Trump's job peformance while 56% disapprove. California is Trump's seventh worst rating among the states, according to Morning Consult. What is Trump's approval rating in Indiana? According to Morning Consult, 51% of Hoosiers approve of Trump while 45% disapprove. Despite recent "No Kings" and "Good Trouble" protests, Indiana is one of the 27 states where Trump's approval ratings are more positive than not. Story continues after photo gallery. What is Trump's approval overall? RealClearPolitics Poll Average shows Trump's approval rating dipping throughout the first few weeks of July before rising toward the end of the month. Aggregated polls by the New York Times show a similar trend. As of Jan. 27, Trump had a +6.2 percentage point approval rating, but as of March 13, that flipped to slightly negative, the RealClearPolitics graphics show. His approval rating fell lowest on April 29 around Trump's 100-day mark to 7.2 percentage points. It came close to that low again on July 22 and 23 at -7.1 percentage points, as the controversy over Jeffrey Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted pedophile, carried into its third week. As of Aug. 12 Trump's average approval rating margin, according to RealClearPolitics, is -5.4 percentage points. The approval margin according to the New York Times aggregator on Aug. 12 is -8 percentage points. How does Trump's approval rating compare to previous presidents? A historical analysis by Gallup shows Trump's approval ratings in July of his first years in office — both as the 45th and 47th presidents — are lower than those of any other modern president at the same time in their administrations. In a Gallup poll conducted from July 7-21, 37% approved of Trump's job performance. Here's how that compares to other presidents in July of their first year of their term, according to Gallup: Kinsey Crowley is the Trump Connect reporter for the USA TODAY Network. Reach her at kcrowley@ Follow her on X and TikTok @kinseycrowley or Bluesky at @ This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: What is Trump's approval rating in Indiana?
