WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will hold a news conference Monday morning about making Washington, D.C., “safer and more beautiful,” he announced Sunday on Truth Social after increasing federal law enforcement presence on the capital’s streets over the weekend.
The president said the focus of the news conference will “not only involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation’s Capital, but will also be about Cleanliness and the General Physical Renovation and Condition of our once beautiful and well maintained Capital.”
Trump is considering ordering the National Guard into the district, which could be announced Monday, according to a defense official and two U.S. officials.
Trump’s news event comes a week after he again threatened a federal takeover of D.C. following an alleged assault on Edward Coristine, an original Department of Government Efficiency staffer known online as “Big Balls,” in an attempted carjacking.
“If D.C. doesn’t get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take Federal control of the City, and run this City how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they’re not going to get away with it anymore,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social last week.
In recent days, he has boosted the federal law enforcement presence in the District of Columbia, with hundreds of personnel deployed across the city over the weekend. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt framed the move as a “first step in stopping the violent crime that has been plaguing the streets of Washington, DC.”
Trump also has the authority to take control of the local police. For the president to mount a full federal takeover of the city, however, Congress would first need to repeal the 1973 Home Rule Act, which granted D.C. limited self-governance.
Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said in an MSNBC interview Sunday that she thinks Trump will announce he is surging federal law enforcement in the capital, and pushed back on the assertion that D.C. is riddled with crime.
“If the priority is to show force in an American city, we know [Trump] can do that here, but it won’t be because there’s a spike in crime,” she said.
D.C. police data indicates that violent crime has decreased 26% compared to last year. The D.C. U.S. Attorney’s Office also announced in January that violent crime in the district in 2024 was at a 30-year low, citing police data.
The president said on Truth Social that he would also discuss plans to make the district “more beautiful than it ever was before,” which would include removing homeless people from the city.
“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote. “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.”
In a separate post on Truth Social, Trump indicated he would also focus on “the Cleanliness and the General Physical Renovation and Condition of our once beautiful and well maintained Capital.” He then referred to the renovation of the Federal Reserve headquarters, which he has previously criticized, saying it “could have been done in a far more elegant and time sensitive manner” for far less money.
Trump signed an executive order in March to make D.C. “safe and beautiful,” establishing a task force to work with local officials on safety issues, such as by increasing the federal law enforcement presence in the city.
Monica Alba, Vaughn Hillyard, Courtney Kube and Gordon Lubold contributed.
