Washington mayor calls Trump’s police order ‘unsettling and unprecedented’

Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser called President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard in the nation’s capital “unsettling and unprecedented” as she sought to reassert the city government’s control over its police department.

Bowser told reporters Monday that the police department’s organizational structure hasn’t changed, pushing back on the narrative painted by the president at a news conference earlier in the day of a federal takeover of the city.

Trump, who has frequently disparaged crime rates in Washington, said the city has been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of violent youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people.”

Bowser defended the police department’s efforts, citing a downward trend in crime incidents from a 2023 spike, and downplayed the “so-called emergency” that catalyzed Trump’s order.

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