President Donald Trump on Monday declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., ahead of an announcement that he’s deploying an as-yet-undetermined number of National Guard troops to help patrol the city.
In addition, Trump — who took the podium with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi flanking him — said he will attempt to work with Congress to change existing laws and policies in crime-ridden U.S. cities like Chicago that have eliminated cash bail.
“This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city’s local leadership. The ‘radical left’ city council adopted no cash bail. By the way, every place in the country where you have no cash bail is a disaster. That’s what started the problem,” Trump said.
CNN noted that the nation’s capital essentially eliminated cash bail decades ago, in 1992.
“We’re going to end that in Chicago,” Trump said. “We’re going to change the statute, and I’m going to have to get the Republicans to vote, because the Democrats are weak on crime.”
“But we’re going to change no cash bail. We’re going to change the statute and get rid of some of the other things, and we’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and the Senate to vote,” Trump added.
Also, Trump said he is designating Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as interim federal commissioner of the DC Metropolitan Police Department. The president described Cole as one of the “top in the country” and told him to run the department “tough.”
“I’m officially invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, you know what that is, and placing the DC Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control,” Trump told the assembled reporters.
He said his actions come as “something’s out of control, but we’re going to put it in control very quickly, like we did on the southern border.”
“I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order and public safety in Washington, DC, and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly,” Trump added.
The 1973 Home Rule Act permits the president to assume control of Washington, D.C.’s police force for up to 48 hours if he “determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist,” requiring the department’s use for federal purposes.
Prior to this, no federal takeover of the D.C. police had ever occurred under the Home Rule Act.
The law allows the president to extend control beyond the initial 48 hours by notifying the chairs and ranking members of the congressional committees responsible for D.C. affairs, though it is unclear whether Trump has done so.
Any request to maintain control for more than 30 days must be approved by Congress through legislation, CNN added.
On Sunday, Trump vowed on Truth Social to evict homeless persons from the nation’s capital. “The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote. “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.”
“We want to have a great, safe capital,” Trump told reporters last week. “And we’re going to have it.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters last week that President Trump had directed law enforcement to bolster their presence in the nation’s capital, a deployment that is expected to last a week at least.
On Sunday, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said in an interview with NewsNation that Washington, D.C., “is more violent than Baghdad.”
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, no friend of the president, pushed back on that description during an appearance on left-wing MSNBC, saying: “Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.”