Latest news with #militarytakeover
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump sued over his military takeover of DC
President Donald Trump is being sued over his military takeover of Washington, D.C., as ICE rolls out new vehicles with gold branding in the city's streets. On Monday, the commander-in-chief signed an executive order federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and deploying National Guard troops to the Capital in an unprecedented crackdown on crime. 'D.C. will not remain a sanctuary city. Actively shielding criminal aliens will not happen,' Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night. The D.C. attorney general's office filed the suit against the Trump administration hours after Bondi ordered D.C.'s Chief of Police Pamela Smith to hand over her policing authority to Drug Enforcement official Terry Cole. Bowser, who has cooperated with the administration since the start of the takeover, called the order unlawful and told Smith she is not 'obligated to follow it.' Trump, Bondi, the Department, Cole and the Drug Enforcement Administration are named in the lawsuit. Schwalb's lawsuit asks the federal judge to vacate Bondi's order and stop the administration from further attempts 'to direct local law enforcement activities.' The suit also argues Trump's executive order is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers. Trump has sent in more than 800 National Guard troops into D.C over the course of the week, along with Border Patrol and ICE agents. On Thursday, ICE unveiled new vehicles branded in gold colors with the agency's logo and name across D.C.'s streets.
Daily Mail
4 days ago
- Politics
- Daily Mail
Trump SUED over his military takeover of DC as new flashy fleet of ICE vehicles with gold branding arrive in ex-sanctuary city
President Donald Trump is being sued over his military takeover of Washington, D.C., as ICE rolls out new vehicles with gold branding in the city's streets. On Monday, the commander-in-chief signed an executive order federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and deploying National Guard troops to the Capital in an unprecedented crackdown on crime. Trump's order temporarily takes control of MPD away from Mayor Muriel Bowser, while asserting emergency powers over D.C. under the Home Rule Act. D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb filed a lawsuit on Friday morning challenging the president's use of his emergency powers. 'The Administration's actions are brazenly unlawful,' Schwalb said in a statement. The lawsuit against the administration was filed in the District Court in D.C. 'They go well beyond the bounds of the President's limited authority and instead seek a hostile takeover of [the Metropolitan Police Department].' Schwalb goes on to describe Trump's takeover as 'an affront to the dignity and autonomy of the 700,000 Americans who call D.C. home.' Meanwhile, Attorney General Pam Bondi on Thursday evening rescinded 'sanctuary city' protections in D.C. 'D.C. will not remain a sanctuary city. Actively shielding criminal aliens will not happen,' Bondi told Fox News host Sean Hannity on Thursday night. The D.C. attorney general's office filed the suit against the Trump administration hours after Bondi ordered D.C.'s Chief of Police Pamela Smith to hand over her policing authority to Drug Enforcement official Terry Cole. Bowser, who has cooperated with the administration since the start of the takeover, called the order unlawful and told Smith she is not 'obligated to follow it.' Trump, Bondi, the Department, Cole and the Drug Enforcement Administration are named in the lawsuit. Schwalb's lawsuit asks the federal judge to vacate Bondi's order and stop the administration from further attempts 'to direct local law enforcement activities.' The suit also argues Trump's executive order is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers. Trump has sent in more than 800 National Guard troops into D.C over the course of the week, along with Border Patrol and ICE agents. On Thursday, ICE unveiled new vehicles branded in gold colors with the agency's logo and name across D.C.'s streets. 'We will have our country back,' DHS wrote X post after posting pictures of the flashy new vehicles. The DHS's bold new PR campaign comes as over 100 arrests have been made since the administration launched the crime crackdown.
The Guardian
7 days ago
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's military takeover of Washington DC is a sheer demonstration of power
President Trump imposed a military takeover of the nation's capital on Monday, sending National Guard troops to Washington. He also seized control of the DC municipal police department, invoking an obscure section of the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act which allows the president to take control of local law enforcement in the district for a period of one month in times of emergency. That there is no emergency is irrelevant: Trump has declared one in order to exercise powers that are only available to him in a state of exception, which is, of course, what the whole country increasingly finds itself to be experiencing as the president expands the powers of his office from those of a constitutional executive into something more like the power of authoritarian control. The move follows the Trump administration's deployment of both the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles earlier this year; in a press conference announcing the move on Monday, Trump suggested that he also intends to deploy the military to cities such as Baltimore, Oakland and New York. 'This will go further,' he said. 'We're starting very strongly with DC' The deployment reflects Trump's continued determination to further erode the longstanding American taboo against deploying military personnel for domestic law enforcement. It hardly matters what the pretext for such moves are. In LA, Trump claimed that protests against his administration's kidnapping of immigrants was causing unsustainable disorder in the city; it wasn't. In DC, Trump is likewise claiming that crime is out of control; it is not. (Crime has in fact dropped precipitously in Washington over the past decade, with violent crimes declining by more than half since 2013; there has been an especially steep decline in the crime rate since 2023.) In a bit of dark comedy, attorney general Pam Bondi appeared at the press conference and stood at a podium to declare that crime in DC would soon come to an end, all while flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump, two men accused – and, in Trump's case, convicted – of numerous crimes themselves. But no one is really supposed to believe that the deployment of troops to America's most liberal, most racially diverse, and most culturally thriving cities is an actual response to an actual crisis. Rather, the thinness of the pretext is itself a demonstration of power. The Trump administration, and national Republicans more broadly, have increasingly been willing to argue that Democratic rule is illegitimate even where Democratic politicians are duly elected; the nationalization of law enforcement in DC follows from this premise, seizing authority that rightly belongs to the Democratic local officials and distributing it to the Republican national figures who will brook no disagreement and tolerate no imposition of policies with which they disagree. Such a move may not, in the end, lead to widespread violence: aside from the lack of much actual crime for them to respond to, the capital is unbearably hot in the summertime, and one imagines sleepy-looking National Guard troops wandering aimlessly around the National Mall in the August swamp heat, wilted and sweaty in their tactical gear. But the imposition should, in a country with sufficient civic virtue, spawn mass protests all the same. The troops, after all, are not there to solve a real problem; there is no actual crisis for Trump to exploit. They are there, instead, because the president wants to send a message: that cities and states that are not sufficiently deferential to him in law will have his will imposed on them by force. The result is the same politics of shakedown and threat that Trump has wielded so successfully against universities and major businesses: he will impose suffering on anyone who does not defer to his will. One strange facet of the Trump era is the continually receding horizon of terms like 'dictatorship' and 'authoritarianism.' Is it an 'authoritarian' move for Trump to seize control of the DC police force if a statute technically grants him the legal authority to do so? Is it a 'dictatorship' if the mechanisms used to extend presidential control into things like private university admissions policies partakes of the nominal consent of administrators? Is it really a collapsed democracy if the soldiers marching down the streets of the capitol haven't actually wound up shooting anyone yet? These are the kinds of questions that sound ridiculous and naïve when you say them out loud; they sound like the kind of excuse-making one engages in when the effort to maintain denial has become desperate. They are also, often, debates involving the sort of semantic questions that are a bad sign when they come up at all: if the answer was good, no one would be asking the question. But the militarization of DC also illustrates a core feature of fascist regimes, which is their collapse of rhetoric and reality. Symbolism, language, images: these are core to Trump's political project, which is as much mythic as it is material. Trump's claims about crime and disorder are plain lies. But the ability to make your lies have the force of fact is a terrifying power. No one can doubt that Trump has seized it. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
The Guardian
12-08-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Trump's military takeover of Washington DC is a sheer demonstration of power
President Trump imposed a military takeover of the nation's capital on Monday, sending National Guard troops to Washington. He also seized control of the DC municipal police department, invoking an obscure section of the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act which allows the president to take control of local law enforcement in the district for a period of one month in times of emergency. That there is no emergency is irrelevant: Trump has declared one in order to exercise powers that are only available to him in a state of exception, which is, of course, what the whole country increasingly finds itself to be experiencing as the president expands the powers of his office from those of a constitutional executive into something more like the power of authoritarian control. The move follows the Trump administration's deployment of both the National Guard and the Marines to Los Angeles earlier this year; in a press conference announcing the move on Monday, Trump suggested that he also intends to deploy the military to cities such as Baltimore, Oakland and New York. 'This will go further,' he said. 'We're starting very strongly with DC' The deployment reflects Trump's continued determination to further erode the longstanding American taboo against deploying military personnel for domestic law enforcement. It hardly matters what the pretext for such moves are. In LA, Trump claimed that protests against his administration's kidnapping of immigrants was causing unsustainable disorder in the city; it wasn't. In DC, Trump is likewise claiming that crime is out of control; it is not. (Crime has in fact dropped precipitously in Washington over the past decade, with violent crimes declining by more than half since 2013; there has been an especially steep decline in the crime rate since 2023.) In a bit of dark comedy, attorney general Pam Bondi appeared at the press conference and stood at a podium to declare that crime in DC would soon come to an end, all while flanked by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump, two men accused – and, in Trump's case, convicted – of numerous crimes themselves. But no one is really supposed to believe that the deployment of troops to America's most liberal, most racially diverse, and most culturally thriving cities is an actual response to an actual crisis. Rather, the thinness of the pretext is itself a demonstration of power. The Trump administration, and national Republicans more broadly, have increasingly been willing to argue that Democratic rule is illegitimate even where Democratic politicians are duly elected; the nationalization of law enforcement in DC follows from this premise, seizing authority that rightly belongs to the Democratic local officials and distributing it to the Republican national figures who will brook no disagreement and tolerate no imposition of policies with which they disagree. Such a move may not, in the end, lead to widespread violence: aside from the lack of much actual crime for them to respond to, the capital is unbearably hot in the summertime, and one imagines sleepy-looking National Guard troops wandering aimlessly around the National Mall in the August swamp heat, wilted and sweaty in their tactical gear. But the imposition should, in a country with sufficient civic virtue, spawn mass protests all the same. The troops, after all, are not there to solve a real problem; there is no actual crisis for Trump to exploit. They are there, instead, because the president wants to send a message: that cities and states that are not sufficiently deferential to him in law will have his will imposed on them by force. The result is the same politics of shakedown and threat that Trump has wielded so successfully against universities and major businesses: he will impose suffering on anyone who does not defer to his will. One strange facet of the Trump era is the continually receding horizon of terms like 'dictatorship' and 'authoritarianism.' Is it an 'authoritarian' move for Trump to seize control of the DC police force if a statute technically grants him the legal authority to do so? Is it a 'dictatorship' if the mechanisms used to extend presidential control into things like private university admissions policies partakes of the nominal consent of administrators? Is it really a collapsed democracy if the soldiers marching down the streets of the capitol haven't actually wound up shooting anyone yet? These are the kinds of questions that sound ridiculous and naïve when you say them out loud; they sound like the kind of excuse-making one engages in when the effort to maintain denial has become desperate. They are also, often, debates involving the sort of semantic questions that are a bad sign when they come up at all: if the answer was good, no one would be asking the question. But the militarization of DC also illustrates a core feature of fascist regimes, which is their collapse of rhetoric and reality. Symbolism, language, images: these are core to Trump's political project, which is as much mythic as it is material. Trump's claims about crime and disorder are plain lies. But the ability to make your lies have the force of fact is a terrifying power. No one can doubt that Trump has seized it. Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist
Asharq Al-Awsat
10-08-2025
- Politics
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Israel Faces Growing Global Condemnation over Military Expansion in Gaza
International condemnation grew Saturday over Israel's decision for a military takeover of Gaza City, while little appeared to change immediately on the ground in the territory shattered by 22 months of war. Health officials said that 11 Palestinians seeking aid were shot dead, and 11 adults died of malnutrition-related causes in the past 24 hours. US special envoy Steve Witkoff was expected to meet with Qatar's prime minister in Spain on Saturday to discuss a new proposal to end the war, according to two officials familiar with the talks, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to speak with the media. Mediators Egypt and Qatar are preparing a new ceasefire framework that would include the release of all hostages — dead and alive — in one go in return for the war's end and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, two Arab officials have told The Associated Press. 'Shut the country down' Families of hostages were rallying again Saturday evening to pressure the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu amid new fears over the 50 remaining hostages, with 20 of them thought to be alive and struggling. 'The living will be murdered and the fallen will be lost forever' if the offensive goes ahead, said Einav Zangauker, whose son Matan is held in Gaza. She called on Israelis to 'help us save the hostages, the soldiers and the state of Israel ... Shut the country down.' A joint statement by nine countries including Germany, Britain, France and Canada said that the 'strongly reject' Israel's decision for the large-scale military operation, saying it will worsen the 'catastrophic humanitarian situation," endanger hostages and further risk mass displacement. They said any attempts at annexation or settlement in Gaza violate international law. A separate statement by more than 20 countries including ceasefire mediators Egypt and Qatar along with Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the United Arab Emirates called Israel's decision a 'dangerous and unacceptable escalation.' Meanwhile, Russia said Israel's plan will aggravate the 'already extremely dramatic situation' in Gaza. The UN Security Council planned an emergency meeting Sunday. And Germany has said it won't authorize any exports of military equipment to Israel that could be used in Gaza until further notice. Killed while seeking aid Officials at Nasser and Awda hospitals said that Israeli forces killed at least 11 people seeking aid in southern and central Gaza. Some had been waiting for aid trucks, while others had been approaching aid distribution points. Israel's military denied opening fire and said that it was unaware of the incidents. The military secures routes leading to distribution sites run by the Israeli-backed and US-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which didn't immediately respond to a request for comment. Two witnesses told the AP that Israeli troops fired toward crowds approaching a GHF distribution site on foot in the Netzarim corridor, a military zone that bisects Gaza. One witness, Ramadan Gaber, said that snipers and tanks fired on aid-seekers, forcing them to retreat. In Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, some aid-seekers cheered the latest airdrops of aid. Hundreds of people rushed to grab what they could, though many have called the process degrading. Aid organizations have called airdrops expensive, insufficient and potentially dangerous for people on the ground. Israel's military said that at least 106 packages of aid were airdropped Saturday as Italy and Greece joined the multi-country effort for the first time. Footage from Italy's defense ministry showed not only packages being parachuted over Gaza but the dry and devastated landscape below. 'This way is not for humans, it is for animals,' said one man at the scene, Mahmoud Hawila, who said he was stabbed while trying to secure an airdropped package. Barefoot children collected rice, pasta and lentils that had spilled from packages onto the ground. The United Nations and partners, whose existing aid delivery system has been criticized by Israel, has called repeatedly for more of the trucks waiting outside Gaza to be allowed not just into the territory, but safely to destinations inside it for distribution. More deaths from hunger Gaza's Health Ministry said that 11 more adults died of malnutrition-related causes over the past 24 hours, bringing the total to 114 since it began counting such adult deaths in late June. It said that 98 children have died of malnutrition-related causes since the war began with the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, with gunmen killing around 1,200 people and abducting 251. Israel is 'forcing Palestinians into a state of near-starvation to the point that they abandon their land voluntarily,' Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told a news conference in Egypt. The toll from hunger isn't included in the ministry's death toll of 61,300 Palestinians in the war. The ministry, part of the Hamas-run government and staffed by medical professionals, doesn't distinguish between fighters or civilians, but says around half of the dead have been women and children. The UN and independent experts consider it the most reliable source on war casualties. Israel disputes the ministry's figures, but hasn't provided its own.
