Power Grab/Fire anyone who can stop him
Trump took federal control of D.C.’s police and deployed 800 National Guard troops, the first use of that power by a president
The August 11, 2025 order invoked Section 740 of the Home Rule Act and cited “out of control” crime, while city data showed homicides falling. Mayor Muriel Bowser was not told in advance.
What happened
On August 11, 2025, Trump signed an executive order invoking Section 740 of the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act, declaring a crime emergency and placing the Metropolitan Police Department under federal direction. He delegated direction of the force to the Attorney General. No president had used the power before. Control lasts 30 days unless Congress extends it.
The same day he activated 800 D.C. National Guard troops, up to 200 of them to support law enforcement. The order followed the assault of a former DOGE staffer in an attempted carjacking on August 3. Agents from the FBI, Border Patrol and ICE were surged into the city.
The order said crime was “out of control.” City data showed homicides had fallen 32% in 2024, from 274 to 187, and were down a further 12% in 2025. Mayor Muriel Bowser called the move “unsettling and unprecedented” and said she learned of it from the announcement.
Who benefited
Trump gained a visible show of force in a majority-Democratic city he governs directly, and a template he said he would “look at” for Chicago, New York and Los Angeles. Attorney General Pam Bondi was handed operational direction of a 3,000-officer police department.
Who wanted something
Trump had campaigned on “sending in the troops” to Democratic cities. Stephen Miller defended the deployment publicly, appearing with Vance and Hegseth to greet Guard troops at Union Station on August 20. The D.C. police union supported it. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt said D.C. “should serve as a model for the rest of the country.”
Who lost out
D.C.’s 700,000 residents have no voting representation in Congress, and their elected government was overridden on a claimed emergency that its own crime data contradicted. Immigrant residents were swept up in federal checkpoints. The principle that the military is not used for routine policing was set aside.
Why it matters
The capital became the first city where the president directly commanded local police and put soldiers on the streets without a request from local officials. D.C. has no governor, so it was the one place he could do this without a court fight. The deployment there has outlasted every one that courts blocked elsewhere.
Sources White House (primary)CNNAssociated Press (via The Gazette)