#Trump threatened to “take over” & “beautify” #DC on the campaign trail & claimed it was “a nightmare of murder & crime.” He also argued the #city was “horribly run” & said his team intended “to take it away from the mayor.” Trump on Monday repeated old comments about some of the nation’s largest #cities, including #Baltimore, #Chicago, #LosAngeles, #Oakland & his hometown of #NYC. All are currently run by #Black mayors.

Ronald #Reagan similarly won both his presidential elections after campaigning heavily on law & order politics. Politicians, including former NY Mayor #RudyGiuliani & former President #BillClinton have cited the need to tamp down *crime* as a reason to seize #power from #liberal #cities for decades.

#Republicans have called for greater #police crackdowns in #cities since at least the 1965 #WattsRiots in #LosAngeles.

President Richard #Nixon won the White House in 1968 after campaigning on a “law & order” agenda to appeal to #white voters in northern cities alongside overtures to white Southerners as part of his “#SouthernStrategy.”

#Conservatives have for generations used denigrating #language to describe the *conditions* of major #cities & called for greater law enforcement, often in response to changing #demographics in those cities driven by #nonwhite populations relocating in search of #work or #safety from #RacialDiscrimination & #StateViolence.

“The president foreshadowed that if these heavy-handed tactics take root here, they will be rolled out to other majority-#Black & #Brown #cities, like #Chicago, #Oakland & #Baltimore, across the country,” said Monica Hopkins, executive director of the ACLU’s #DC chapter.

“We’ve seen before how #federal #control of the DC #NationalGuard & #police can lead to #abuse, #intimidation & #CivilRights violations —

…According to White House ofcls, #troops will be deployed to protect federal assets & facilitate a safe environment for law enforcement to make arrests. The #Trump admin believes the highly visible presence of law enforcement will deter violent crime. It is unclear how the admin defines providing a safe environment for law enforcement to conduct arrests, raising alarm bells for some advocates.

“I’m going to work every day to make sure it’s not a complete disaster,” #Bowser said at the Monday news conference, as she sought to downplay the impact of the #DC #takeover. “So we are going to work, every day, to get this emergency put to an end.”

She paused briefly & added, “I’ll call it the so-called emergency.”

An influx of arrests could hamstring an already understaffed US attorney’s office in #DC, which has seen dozens of prosecutors leave this admin….

The mayor said Monday that she had one call over the weekend that indicated #Trump might deploy the #NationalGuard but did not have reason to believe that the president would place the DC #police under direct #federal #control.

Still, #DC officials, who had been working for months to coordinate with the White House, were caught by surprise by Trump’s announcement, said #MurielBowser, who at a news conference described pleading her case to #Trump personally. In their first meeting after Trump took office the second time, she said, they spoke about the #city’s improved efforts in combating #crime.

…Last week, days after Coristine’s attack, #Trump ordered #federal law enforcement agents from several agencies to be deployed throughout #DC & called for more juveniles to be charged in the adult justice system. In the days leading up to Monday’s announcement, the #FBI began dispatching agents in overnight shifts to *help* local law enforcement address carjackings & violent crime.

About a month after #Trump took office, he again said the #federal government should take over the #city: “I like the mayor. I get along great with the mayor, but they’re not doing the job,” he told reporters on Air Force One. “Too much crime. Too much graffiti. Too many tents on the lawns of these magnificent lawns, & there’s tents.” [he said idiotically]

Still, #Trump’s interest in reforming the city remained, according to multiple White House officials. Frustration grew within the admin as #city officials were seen as not sharing enough information with #federal law enforcement, one of the people said, & not getting rid of every #homeless encampment as #Bowser had promised.

During the Republican National Convention, #Trump referred to #DC as “a horrible killing field,” [] & the party’s national platform included promises to “reassert greater Federal Control over Washington, DC to restore Law & Order.”

This time, his admin was less candid with #city leaders.

#Trump had returned to office with plans well in hand for how to meet such a moment, according to the two people. That playbook for asserting more #control ranged from leveraging federal resources to ending #HomeRule altogether. Federalizing the #police was seen as a middle-of-the-road option.

A White House ofcl…said that the attempted carjacking of Coristine underscored the importance [was a perfect excuse] to what had been a long-standing promise from #Trump to address *crime* in #Washington.

He had walked up to this line before, threatening a #takeover during the summer of unrest in 2020, but #DC [& military] officials talked him down with warnings that such a heavy-handed & unprecedented approach would only exacerbate tensions in the city.

In many ways, #Trump’s directive, backed by several signed executive actions, was the culmination of years of his complaints about the nation’s capital & a stated desire to rescue DC “from crime, bloodshed, bedlam & squalor, & worse,” despite a dramatic drop in incidents of violence year-over-year. But in a more narrow sense, it appeared to be a response to one specific crime, an attempted carjacking that took place…Aug 3.

Those questions were answered Monday morning, when #Trump federalized the #DC #police dept & authorized some 800 #NationalGuard #troops to patrol #city streets…. Speaking to a packed White House briefing room, he gave them a far-reaching mandate to clear #homeless encampments, make #arrests & “to do whatever the hell they want” in curbing *crime* — an exertion of #executive #power never before attempted by any #US #president in modern history.