Welcome to the NewsHour. President Trump announced today a federal takeover of Washington, D.C.,'s

police department and a deployment of its National Guard in order, he says, to crack down on crime.

The move invokes rare but legal presidential authorities, but local officials say he's wrong to say that crime has spiraled out of control.

This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we're going to take our capital back. Today, a renewed promise from the president to tackle what he says is a crime and homelessness

problem in the nation's capital. Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,

roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it

happen anymore. Flanked by his cabinet and federal law enforcement, the president declared

a public safety emergency. Announcing his attorney general will take control of D.C.'s police force, the National Guard

will deploy hundreds of troops in the city and threatening the use of active-duty troops.

You're going to have a lot of essentially military, and we will bring in the military if it's needed by the way today's actions mark a major

escalation of a federal crackdown already underway over the weekend over a hundred federal

agents including FBI Secret Service and U.S. Marshals patrolled D.C. streets a heightened presence

that D.C.'s mayor Muriel Bowser said was wholly unnecessary.

While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that given some of the

rhetoric of the past, that we're totally surprised. When we think of emergencies, it usually

involves surges in crime. Despite the president's

claims, violent crime in D.C. hit a 30-year low in 2024, and this year, violent crime has dropped

another 26 percent, according to D.C. police statistics. The president has stepped up calls for

federal forces in the nation's capital

since an administration staffer, Edward Khoristine, was assaulted in D.C. last week while trying

to stop an alleged carjacking.

George Floyd!

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