Trump federalizes D.C. police as protests grow and White House signals expanded occupation
As federal control over Washington, D.C.’s police force entered its third day, tensions escalated on 14th Street Wednesday night when more than 100 protesters confronted a checkpoint staffed by a combination of local and federal officers. The checkpoint, which included agents from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alongside other agencies, was set up as part of President Donald Trump’s takeover of the city’s police under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act.
Some DHS agents at the checkpoint wore face coverings to conceal their identities. Protesters chanted “get off our streets” and “go home fascists” as they gathered in front of the installation. Some shouted directly at the officers while others warned oncoming drivers to turn away. At least one person, a Black woman, was arrested.
A Washington Post report said a “mix of local and federal authorities pulled over drivers for seat belt violations or broken taillights.” A D.C. resident posting on Reddit alleged that agents were “pulling people out of cars who are ‘suspicious’ or if they don’t like the answers to their questions.” The checkpoint closed before midnight, and National Guard troops—activated earlier in the week by Trump—were not seen on site.
The White House says more National Guard forces will be on the streets. An unnamed Trump official told CNN Wednesday that a “significantly higher” number of Guard members were expected in D.C. to “create a safe environment” for “hundreds of federal officers and agents from over a dozen agencies” patrolling the city. “The National Guard is not arresting people,” the official said.
Trump declared a public safety emergency Monday to invoke Section 740 and take control of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) for 30 days. At an event at the Kennedy Center, he confirmed he will ask Congress to authorize an extension of federal control beyond that limit. “Already they’re saying, ‘He’s a dictator,’” Trump told the audience. “The place is going to hell. We’ve got to stop it. So instead of saying, ‘He’s a dictator,’ they should say, ‘We’re going to join him and make Washington safe.’”
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) have expressed support for Trump’s actions, but any extension legislation could face procedural resistance from Senate Democrats. Trump said he would also consider using congressional authorization to expand federal police control to other cities, naming Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Oakland. Official data shows violent crime has been trending downward in all of those cities, with some registering historic lows.
In D.C., violent crime fell to a 30-year low last year and is currently down 26% from a year ago, when it was already at its second-lowest level since 1966. Critics say the president’s public-safety justification is undermined by these figures.
Some opponents have characterized the move as part of a broader pattern of authoritarian overreach. Journalist Radley Balko wrote this week that “the motivation for Donald Trump’s plan to ‘federalize’ Washington, D.C., is same as his motivation for sending active-duty troops into Los Angeles, deporting people to the CECOT torture prison in El Salvador, his politicization of the Department of Justice, and nearly every other authoritarian overreach of the last six months: He is testing the limits of his power—and, by extension, of our democracy.”
“He’s feeling out what the Supreme Court, Congress, and the public will let him get away with. And so far, he’s been able to do what he pleases,” Balko continued. “We are now past the point of crisis. Trump has long dreamed of presiding over a police state. He has openly admired and been reluctant to criticize foreign leaders who helm one. He has now appointed people who have expressed their willingness to help him achieve one to the very positions with the power to make one happen. And both he and his highest-ranking advisers have both openly spoken about and written out their plans to implement one.”
“It’s time to believe them,” Balko added.
The D.C. occupation also comes amid a court battle in San Francisco over whether Trump violated the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 by deploying troops to Los Angeles earlier this year. California Deputy Attorney General Meghan Strong argued in court Wednesday that the president intended to “strike fear into the hearts of Californians.”
Roosevelt University political science professor and Newsweek contributor David Faris called the D.C. deployment “an unconscionable abuse of federal power and another worrisome signpost on our road to autocracy.”
“Using the military to bring big, blue cities to heel, exactly as ‘alarmists’ predicted during the 2024 campaign, isn’t about a crisis in D.C.—violent crime is actually at a 30-year low,” Faris wrote. “President Trump is, once again, testing the limits of his power, hoping to intimidate other cities into submission to his every vengeful whim by making the once unimaginable—an American tyrant ordering a military occupation of our own capital—a terrifying reality.”
Kat Abughazaleh, a Democratic congressional candidate in Illinois, described the D.C. takeover as “another telltale sign of his authoritarian ambitions.”
While the administration frames the deployments as necessary for safety, the visible presence of federal officers, the checkpoints, and the possible expansion to other cities are drawing continued protests and legal challenges. The outcome of the Section 740 extension request and the Posse Comitatus trial could determine how far the White House can push its use of federal law enforcement and military personnel on American streets.
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