President Donald Trump on Wednesday mused again about the possibility of taking federal control of the US capital Washington, including by using soldiers, to counter what he falsely suggested was rising crime in the city.
Under a more-than 50-year agreement, governance of Washington rests with the locally elected government of the District of Columbia — including its mayor — with Congress having an oversight role.
Trump has long chafed at that arrangement and has repeatedly suggested he would like to federalize the city, giving the White House the final say in how it is run.
“We’re considering it, yeah, because the crime is ridiculous,” he told reporters in response to a question about whether he should be in charge of the city’s police force.
“We want to have a great safe capital — and we’re going to have it.
“The rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else; we’re not going to let it — and that includes bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly too,” he said.
The comments come a day after the billionaire president took to his social media platform to threaten city leaders.
“If DC doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run,” he wrote.
Violent crime in Democratic-controlled Washington fell in the first half of 2025 by 26 percent compared with a year earlier, police statistics show.
The city’s crime rates in 2024 were already their lowest in three decades, according to figures produced by the Justice Department before Trump took office.
Trump’s threat to send the National Guard into the capital comes weeks after he deployed California’s military reserve force into Los Angeles to quell protests over immigration raids, despite objections from local leaders and law enforcement.
The president has frequently mused about using the military to control America’s cities, many of which are under Democratic control and hostile to his nationalist impulses.
On Wednesday Washington’s non-voting congressional delegate, Eleanor Holmes Norton, rejected Trump’s claim that violent crime was rising, and his threat to federalize the capital.
“Presidents have no authority to unilaterally take control of DC. Congress would have to pass a law, and I won’t let the current effort get that far,” she said on X.
