President Trump has deployed approximately 680 National Guard alongside a few hundred federal law enforcement agents to Washington D.C. earlier this week, commandeering the city’s own police force in an effort to combat crime. This is the first time in DC’s history a president has used a declared emergency to seize control of the city’s police, despite a 30-year historic low of violent crime.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser has condemned the takeover, calling Trump’s actions ‘authoritarian’. Bowser having stated in a press conference, “This is a time where community needs to jump in and we all need to, to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy, to protect our Home Rule, and get to the other side of this guy, and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.”
Other Democrats have dismissed Trump’s actions, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, who dealt with Trump’s deployment of National Guard in her city earlier this summer, stated in a conference, “To me, it just all boiled down to being a stunt and I just don’t think you should use our troops for political stunts.”
President Trump has defended the deployment, stating that it is a necessary measure to bring down violent crime in DC. “You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is, we have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. We don’t even mention that anymore, they’re so far gone. We’re not going to lose our cities over this, and this will go further,” said Trump last week.
