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Donald Trump, 2024 presidential campaign
"I'm going to be going out tonight with the police and with the military," the president said on a conservative radio show.
President Donald Trump said Thursday he will personally patrol Washington, D.C., alongside police officers and National Guard troops in a dramatic extension of his administration’s federal takeover of the capital.
“I’m going to be going out tonight with the police and with the military, of course,” Trump told conservative host Todd Starnes. Trump has previously described the national capital as riddled with “crime” and “dangerous.”
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The announcement comes after Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act last week to seize control of the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy Guard troops. Violent crime in Washington has declined steeply, down 35 percent in 2024 and another 26 percent so far this year, reaching the lowest level in three decades.
Related: Trump’s ‘dictator-like’ D.C. takeover is an assault on democracy, critics warn
But while Trump cites crime to justify his actions, the impact has been most acutely felt in D.C.’s nightlife. Over the past week, bar owners along U Street and Adams Morgan reported sales collapses and patrons fleeing after federal checkpoints and ICE patrols blanketed entertainment corridors. “This whole thing is being billed as a violent crime crackdown, but it’s just an immigration sweep,” said Mark Rutstein, co-owner of Crush Dance Bar, where Thursday sales dropped 75 percent.
Dave Perruzza, who owns LGBTQ+ bars Pitchers and A League of Her Own in nearby Adams Morgan, said Friday felt “like a desert,” with losses topping $7,000 in a single night.
Civil rights groups say the deployment is less about public safety than about consolidating power. Kris Tassone of Advocates for Trans Equality called the militarization “not the conduct of a functioning democracy,” accusing Trump of scapegoating marginalized communities to distract from his failures.
Related: D.C. bar owners say Trump’s federal law enforcement crackdown is killing their business
While Trump cast his planned street patrols as spontaneous, any presidential movement involves extraordinary pre-planning. The U.S. Secret Service coordinates advance teams, road closures, counter-sniper deployments, and emergency evacuation routes, planning that often unfolds over days or weeks.
Longtime D.C. journalist Tom Sherwood noted, “His motorcade likely will give away any surprise showing up.” He added, “Please be prepared to respectfully welcome him to your neighborhood."
The plan to walk among uniformed soldiers targeting American civilians recalls Trump’s infamous June 2020 photo-op during his first administration, when law enforcement used tear gas and force to clear peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square so he could pose outside St. John’s Church holding up an upside-down Bible. That staged spectacle was widely condemned as a cynical abuse of symbolism to project authority.
Rachel Maddow cautioned on her MSNBC show recently, “We’re beyond waiting and seeing now. We have crossed a line.”
The White House has not disclosed which neighborhoods Trump plans to patrol on Thursday night.
This is a developing story.
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