Why Donald Trump is wrong to take over the DC police

AMERICA’S CAPITAL city was designed as a showcase for its democracy: sweeping boulevards, white-marble palaces of administration, monuments aplenty. Over the past few days, however, Washington, DC, has become a manifestation of something less inspiring: the grandstanding instincts of the current president.

This time, Donald Trump’s preoccupation is violent crime. Mr Trump has been banging this drum for decades. “Roving bands of wild criminals roam our neighbourhoods dispensing their own brand of twisted hatred,” warned Mr Trump nearly 40 years ago. The occasion then was the rape and assault of a white woman in New York’s Central Park, for which five black and Hispanic men were later wrongfully convicted. On August 11th Mr Trump all but quoted himself: “Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people,” he said from the White House briefing room. Then he deployed the National Guard to Washington; took control of its police force; and promised to “get rid of the slums” and clear out its homeless population.

This is not the president’s first use of the armed forces for civilian law enforcement in a city that reviles him and that he reviles right back. Earlier this summer Mr Trump sent National Guard troops to protect federal property during protests over immigration raids in Los Angeles. In 2020 he ordered them to disperse Black Lives Matter demonstrators in Washington. In neither instance did local Democratic leaders ask for his intervention. Now Mr Trump hints that the Washington deployment could be a blueprint for other troublesome (ie, Democratic) places. “Every other blue-city mayor” should take note, said Rick Scott, a Republican senator. Democrats agree, describing Washington as a “dress rehearsal”.

That will be easier said than done. The capital has an unusual legal status as a territory of the federal government granted qualified “home rule”. Elsewhere the president would face more legal impediments. The practical impact of his order may also be modest. He has authorised the DC Guard—which is tiny—to act as cops. About 200 troops will support law enforcement. Mr Trump’s control of the city police can last for only 30 days. He says he will seek an extension from Congress, which is unlikely to oblige. This is a long way from a federal takeover of Washington.

It is still absurd. Seeking to justify his order, Mr Trump cited several awful attacks against government workers. In early August carjackers beat up and bloodied a former DOGE staffer. In June stray gunfire killed a congressional intern. Last year an official at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission was shot to death in a carjacking. In 2023 a Senate aide was stabbed and a congressman was robbed at gunpoint. “It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness,” said Mr Trump, likening the capital to Baghdad and Bogotá.

The president is right that violent crime in Washington surged in 2023 and that it numbers among the more dangerous cities in America. He neglected to say that crime there has since tumbled. This year’s murder rate is falling towards the pre-pandemic trend. The number of carjackings, which doubled between 2022 and 2023, is declining, too, though they are still more frequent than they were before the pandemic. Overall the capital is much safer than it was in the 1990s, when it had the highest murder rate in the country, and it is a bit less dangerous than it was a decade ago, notes Jeff Asher, a crime analyst.

If Mr Trump and his fellow Republicans were really concerned about public safety in the city, they would not have put DC in an unnecessary fiscal straitjacket. Congress has sweeping powers over the city’s finances, and earlier this year Republicans used them to force it to slash spending, even though its budget was already balanced (unlike the federal government’s). That has made it impossible for the city to increase spending on the police—or anything else. It has money sitting in the bank that Congress will not allow it to spend. It is defund the police, Republican-style.

Mr Trump’s has a fixation with Washington the city, and not just because he can see it from his bedroom window. The constitution gives the federal government authority to run the city directly. It has much less power over states and even other federal territories. The president commands the DC National Guard—in states, governors have that job—and he can take temporary control of the police department.

Washington’s unique status means these same tactics cannot easily be replicated outside the capital. To “federalise” the National Guard for arrest purposes elsewhere—to empower troops to act as cops—Mr Trump would have to invoke the Insurrection Act. Only then can the armed forces legally be put to use to quell a domestic uprising. The act was last used in 1992. Invoking it again would be immensely controversial. Before Mr Trump, the last president to deploy the Guard over the objections of a governor was Lyndon B. Johnson, during civil-rights demonstrations in Selma, Alabama.

Army officials tend to dislike the idea of getting involved in law enforcement—with good reason. The training and rules of engagement are different. Battlefields require a mindset primed for combat.

As it is, Mr Trump’s prior National Guard deployments have been legally fraught. A federal district judge in California is currently weighing whether his use of the Guard there flouted the narrow scope allowed in that instance, where they were only meant to protect buildings. Mr Trump’s decision to send other states’ Guard units to Washington in 2020 was even more tenuous from a legal perspective, says Mark Nevitt, a law professor at Emory University.

Washington’s 700,000-odd residents have little recourse to resist Mr Trump’s actions. They do not get any votes in Congress. Although the federal government did grant them an elected mayor and city council in the 1970s, it could rescind “home rule” at any time. Mr Trump has threatened to do so several times. Local politicians, for the most part, are trying to ward off such a possibility by placating him. Mr Trump’s approach in Washington, then, is clever when viewed through a politician’s or a lawyer’s lens. Which is not to say that his order is justified or good policy. ■