The White House is considering a federal takeover of Washington, D.C. in an effort to combat crime following a high-profile shooting of a Capitol Hill intern, President Donald Trump remarked during a cabinet meeting on Tuesday.
The move could require potential congressional action or potential unilateral action from the President, depending on the scope and scale of the federalization, according to Bloomberg. Trump remarked that he was looking into the idea of seizing control of the city.
“We could run D.C. I mean, we’re looking at D.C.,” Trump said during the meeting. “We’re thinking about doing it, to be honest with you. We want a capital that’s run flawlessly.”
Talks of a federal takeover heated up following several highly public murders in the capital, including the fatal shooting of congressional intern Eric Tarpinian-Jachym last week and the murder of two Israeli Embassy staff members in May.
“I think that D.C. has to become a very safe place, and we’re not going to let anything bad happen to D.C.,” President Trump told Daily Caller White House Correspondent Reagan Reese on July 3. “That’s our beautiful state, and we’re not going to let anything bad…we’ll have something to say about it.”
The White House and Mayor Bowser’s office did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The Trump Administration is in talks with Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser the situation, according to Bloomberg. The two have a positive relationship during the latter’s second term in office and have collaborated on plans to install a major football stadium in the city.
A federal takeover of the nation’s capital would require an act of Congress to overturn the 1973 Home Rule Act, which granted Washington, D.C. residents the ability to elect their own mayor and city council, giving them more control over local affairs. However, President Trump could make some unilateral efforts toward securing the capital, including a potential takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department, the Associated Press reported in February.
The capital has become a national outlier in violent crime, with reported crime statistics nearing their 2024 levels only seven months into this year, according to the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. Under the Biden administration, shootings, homicides, and carjackings dramatically increased around the nation’s capital.
Criminal prosecution in the capital suffered in recent years under Biden-appointed U.S. Attorney Matthew Graves, who declined to prosecute two-thirds of people arrested in 2022 and 56% in 2023, according to NBC News.
D.C. Delegate to Congress Eleanor Holmes Norton called efforts at federalization of the capital “anti-democratic” and “based on misinformation” in a statement released in February.
“We have made significant progress in our historic march toward making D.C. the 51st state, and President Trump’s comments, a continuation of the anti-democratic rhetoric from Republicans concerning the District of Columbia, despite their basis in falsehoods, is evidence of that progress,” Norton said.
Norton also denied allegations of rising crime in the city, citing a January 2025 report from the Department of Justice. The report stated violent crime in the city during 2024 decreased by 35% and had hit a 30-year-low.
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