Trump says he's placing Washington police under federal control and activating the National Guard

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump said Monday he’s taking over Washington's police department and activating 800 members of the National Guard in the hopes of reducing crime, even as city officials stressed crime is already falling in the nation’s capital.

The president, flanked by his attorney general, his defense secretary and the FBI director, said he was declaring a public safety emergency and his administration would be removing homeless encampments.

“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump declared, adding he'd also be “getting rid of the slums.”

For Trump, the effort to take over public safety in Washington reflects an escalation of his aggressive approach to law enforcement. The District of Columbia’s status as a congressionally established federal district gives him a unique opportunity to push his tough-on-crime agenda, though he has not proposed solutions to the root causes of homelessness or crime.

Attorney General Pam Bondi will assume responsibility for Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department, Trump said, as he also railed against potholes and graffiti in the city and called them “embarrassing.” The president did not provide a timeline for the control of the police department, but he's limited to 30 days under statute unless he gets approval from Congress.

As Trump spoke, demonstrators gathered outside the White House to protest his moves. And local officials rejected the Republican president's depiction of the district as crime-ridden and called his actions illegal.

“The administration’s actions are unprecedented, unnecessary, and unlawful,” District of Columbia Attorney General Brian Schwalb said. “There is no crime emergency in the District of Columbia."

Schwalb, a Democrat, said violent crime in the district reached historic 30-year lows last year and is down an additional 26% this year.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said she would follow the law regarding the “so-called emergency” even as she indicated that Trump's actions were a reason why the District of Columbia should be a state with legal protections from such actions.

“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,” Bowser said.

The president dismissed the idea Washington needed to enlarge its 3,500-officer police force, even as he seeks to have more armed personnel going through the city with the goal of reducing crime.

“What you need is rules and regulations, and you need the right people to implement them,” he said.

Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a “crime emergency” so his administration could take over the city's police force. He signed a directive for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to activate the National Guard.

While Trump has portrayed himself as a friend to law enforcement and enjoyed the political backing from many of their groups, he pardoned or commuted the sentences of the 1,500-plus people charged with crimes in the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol riot, including people convicted of assaulting police officers.

About 500 federal law enforcement officers are being tasked with deploying throughout the nation’s capital as part of Trump’s effort to combat crime, a person familiar with the matter told The Associated Press.

More than 100 FBI agents and about 40 agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives are among federal personnel being assigned to patrols in Washington, the person briefed on the plans said. The Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Marshals Service are contributing officers.

The person was not authorized to publicly discuss personnel matters and spoke to the AP on the condition of anonymity. The Justice Department didn’t immediately have a comment Monday morning.

Bowser, a Democrat, has previously questioned the effectiveness of using the National Guard to enforce city laws and said the federal government could be far more helpful by funding more prosecutors or filling the 15 vacancies on the D.C. Superior Court, some of which have been open for years.

Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.

“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said Sunday on MSNBC's “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is "the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”

Bowser noted that violent crime in Washington has decreased since a rise in 2023. She stressed during a Monday news conference that she believed Trump's views of the city were shaped by the “challenging times” of the coronavirus pandemic, when he faced protests and crime spiked as the country began to recover from the outbreak.

Trump has emphasized the removal of Washington’s homeless population, though it was unclear where the thousands of people would go, and he did not give details at his news conference Monday.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday in a social media post. “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.”

Jesse Rabinowitz, a advocate for homeless people, called Trump's plan “fascist” and a “waste” of resources. He said the move wasn't about safety.

“It is about power, and it is about fascism and authoritarianism,” said Rabinowitz, the campaign and communication director for the National Homelessness Law Center. “If Donald Trump wanted to keep D.C. safe, he would fund housing and support. Instead, the Republicans just gutted health care, and they’re passing through a budget that will make homelessness worse. They do not care about helping people.”

Police statistics show homicides, robberies and burglaries are down this year when compared with this time in 2024. Overall, violent crime is down 26% compared with this time a year ago.

The president has criticized the district as full of “tents, squalor, filth, and Crime,” and he seems to have been set off by the attack on Edward Coristine, among the most visible figures of the bureaucracy-cutting effort known as the Department of Government Efficiency. Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.

“This has to be the best run place in the country, not the worst run place in the country,” Trump said Wednesday.

He called Bowser “a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances.”

Trump has repeatedly suggested the rule of Washington could be returned to federal authorities. Doing so would require a repeal of the Home Rule Act of 1973 in Congress, a step Trump said lawyers are examining.

Bowser acknowledged the law allows the president to take more control over the city's police, but only if certain conditions are met.

“None of those conditions exist in our city right now," she said. “We are not experiencing a spike in crime. In fact, we’re watching our crime numbers go down.”

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khalil, Alanna Durkin Richer, Nathan Ellgren, Darlene Superville and Michelle L. Price contributed to this report.

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser speaks as Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela A. Smith listens during a news conference on President Donald Trump's plan to place Washington police under federal control and deploy National guard troops to Washington, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Protesters demonstrate against President Donald Trump's planned use of federal law enforcement and National Guard troops in Washington, during a rally in front of the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi look on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters in the James Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2025, in Washington, as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth looks on. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

FILE - Pamela Smith, Chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, speaks during a briefing, June 9, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)

FILE - Mayor of the District of Columbia Muriel Bowser speaks as U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, left, listens during a news conference in Washington, May 22, 2025. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters before boarding Air Force One at Lehigh Valley International Airport, Sunday, Aug. 3, 2025, in Allentown, Pa. (AP Photo/Julia Demaree Nikhinson)

FILE - The U.S. Capitol building gives backdrop to a homeless man resting on a steam vent on the National Mall, Dec. 18, 2019, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez, File)

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — Vote counting was underway Friday in Uganda’s tense presidential election, which was held a day earlier amid an internet shutdown, voting delays and complaints by an opposition leader who said some of his polling agents had been detained by the authorities.

Opposition leader Bobi Wine said Thursday he was unable to leave his house and that his polling agents in rural areas were abducted before voting started, undermining his efforts to prevent electoral offenses such as ballot stuffing.

Wine is hoping to end President Yoweri Museveni's four-decade rule in an election during which the military was deployed and heavy security was posted outside his house near Kampala, the Ugandan capital, after the vote.

The musician-turned-politician wrote on X on Thursday that a senior party official in charge of the western region had been arrested, adding there was “massive ballot stuffing everywhere.”

Rural Uganda, especially the western part of the country, is a ruling-party stronghold, and the opposition would be disadvantaged by not having polling agents present during vote counting.

To try to improve his chances of winning, Wine had urged his supporters to “protect the vote” by having witnesses document alleged offenses at polling stations, in addition to deploying official polling agents.

Wine faced similar setbacks when he first ran for president five years ago. Museveni took 58% of the vote, while Wine got 35%, according to official results. Wine said at the time that the election had been rigged in favor of Museveni, who has spoken disparagingly of his rival.

Museveni, after voting on Thursday, said the opposition had infiltrated the 2021 election and defended the use of biometric machines as a way of securing the vote in this election.

Museveni has served the third-longest tenure of any African leader and is seeking to extend his rule into a fifth decade. The aging president’s authority has become increasingly dependent on the military, which is led by his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba.

Uganda has not witnessed a peaceful transfer of presidential power since independence from British colonial rule six decades ago.

Voters line up to cast their ballots at a polling station, during the presidential election, in the capital, Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

Election officials count ballots after the polls closed for the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

An election official holds up unmarked ballots during the vote count after polls closed for the presidential election, at a polling center in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A political representative speaks as he works to observe and verify the counting of ballots after polls closed in the presidential election at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)

A supporter of leading opposition candidate Bobi Wine cheers while watching election officials count ballots, after polls closed at a polling station in Kampala, Uganda, Thursday, Jan. 15, 2026. (AP Photo/Brian Inganga)