The president is expected to speak at 10 a.m. Watch live here in the video feed above.
President Donald Trump is expected to announce on Monday morning a crackdown on crime and homeless in D.C., prompting Mayor Muriel Bowser to voice concerns about the potential use of the National Guard to patrol streets.
Trump wrote in a social media post that he would speak at the White House about plans to make D.C. “safer and more beautiful than it ever was before.”
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote Sunday. “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.”
Last week, the president directed federal law enforcement agencies to increase their presence in Washington for seven days, with the option “to extend as needed.”
On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington.
Trump said last week that he was considering ways for the federal government to seize control of Washington, asserting that crime was “ridiculous” and the city was “unsafe,” after the recent assault of a high-profile member of the Department of Government Efficiency.
The moves Trump said he was considering included bringing in the D.C. National Guard.
DC mayor says, ‘We are not experiencing a crime spike’
D.C.’s mayor pushed back in an interview with MSNBC on Sunday, saying that comparing the city “to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false.”
Bowser, a Democrat, questioned the effectiveness of using the 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.
Earlier, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller told NewsNation’s Kellie Meyer that D.C. was “more violent than Baghdad,” NBC News reported.
Bowser cannot activate the National Guard herself, but she can submit a request to the Pentagon.
Mayor Muriel Bowser talked on MSNBC’S “The Weekend” about President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime in the District Sunday morning.
“I just think that’s not the most efficient use of our Guard,” she said on MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” acknowledging it is “the president’s call about how to deploy the Guard.”
Bowser said she spoke to Trump a few weeks ago in the White House’s Oval Office and several times about crime, including during their first meeting after he was elected for his second term.
“The President is very aware of our efforts,” Bowser said. “He established a task force, which our police department and agencies support with information and anything else they ask us for…it is always the President’s prerogative to use federal law enforcement or the National Guard.”
Bowser also anticipated what she believes the White House will announce on Monday.
“It is clear that the President, and I suspect that his announcement is that he is surging federal law enforcement, which he’s talked about, and he may talk about even larger numbers or longer periods of time he’s interested in being in neighborhoods and fighting crime in neighborhoods, and to the extent that officers know our laws”, she said.
“That officers work in community and work with prosecutors to build good cases and establish a presence and work with local officials who are you know, the expert is in policing and making arrests. That’s what we’re waiting to see,” the mayor added.
Trump threatened DC takeover after attack on DOGE staffer
Trump threatened last week to take federal control of Washington, D.C., after a former Department of Government Efficiency employee was attacked during an attempted carjacking. The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed the victim was Edward Coristine, known by the nickname “Big Balls.” He was one of the original DOGE staffers.
Police arrested two 15-year-olds in the attempted carjacking and said they were looking for others.
“We’re going to have to federalize D.C. and run it the way it’s supposed to be run,” Trump said in a Truth Social post on Tuesday night.
“The rate of crime, the rate of muggings, killings and everything else, we’re not going to let it, and that includes bringing in the National Guard, maybe very quickly, too,” Trump told a member of the White House pool on Wednesday.
On Friday night, federal agencies including the Secret Service, the FBI and the U.S. Marshals Service assigned more than 120 officers and agents to assist in Washington.
Trump has repeatedly suggested that 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. It could face steep pushback.
Bowser acknowledged that 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.”
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(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by PostX News and is published from a syndicated feed.)
