President Donald Trump has threatened to once again federalize Washington, D.C.’s police department after Mayor Muriel Bowser said officers will not assist federal immigration agents with enforcement operations.
The clash comes just days after Trump’s 30-day emergency takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) expired. That order, which started Aug. 11 and ended Sept. 10, put the city’s police under federal control, deployed the National Guard, and compelled local officers to support Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
Trump claimed the intervention turned Washington into “one of the safest” cities in the world and warned that if Bowser’s stance continues, “CRIME would come roaring back.”
He vowed to declare a national emergency and federalize the police again if the city refuses to cooperate.
Bowser has rejected the president’s demand, saying immigration enforcement is not the role of local police.
“Immigration enforcement is not what MPD does, and with the end of the emergency, it won’t be what MPD does,” she said.
The mayor has walked a tightrope with Trump since he returned to office.
At a press conference in late August, Bowser thanked the administration for the influx of federal officers but added, “What we know is not working is a break in trust between police and community. We know having masked ICE agents in the community has not worked.”
Her approach has drawn criticism from members of the D.C. Council, who argue that crediting federal officers risks legitimizing Trump’s broader attempts to expand control into other cities.
“This is trampling on democracy in real time, on our watch,” Council member Robert White said.
Trump’s Longtime Criticism of D.C.
The president has a long record of disparaging the nation’s capital.
After leaving office in 2021 and launching his bid to return, Trump described Washington as “horribly run” and a “nightmare of murder and crime.”
In August, after a former Doge staffer was assaulted, he cited the incident to justify his declaration of a “crime emergency,” painting the city as mired in “bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.”
He has also insisted that violent crime in D.C. is the “worst it’s ever been,” despite Justice Department figures showing the opposite—2024 marked a 30-year low.
On the campaign trail, Trump repeatedly vowed to “take over” D.C.
He followed through in early August, sending hundreds of federal agents into the city to work alongside local police. Days later, he declared a “public safety emergency” that placed the Metropolitan Police Department under federal command for 30 days.
He added to that by deploying about 2,300 National Guard troops, several hundred of them brought in from Republican-led states.
Bowser’s Balancing Act: Showing Cooperation, While Signaling Unease about Trump’s Tactics
Bowser, now the second-longest-serving mayor in the city’s history and weighing a fourth term, has had to navigate Trump’s return with calculated restraint.
That approach contrasts sharply with her posture during the George Floyd protests in 2020.
At the time, Bowser openly called Trump a “scared man” and labeled his deployment of federal officers and the National Guard an “invasion of our city.”
She also ordered that a portion of 16th Street in front of the White House be renamed Black Lives Matter Plaza, with the words painted in massive yellow letters across the roadway.
This year, under renewed pressure from Trump and congressional Republicans, she agreed to remove the plaza designation to avoid threats of losing federal funding.
“We have bigger fish to fry,” Bowser said in March, explaining that her focus was on keeping residents and the local economy afloat.
Her cooperation, including an executive order directing the Metropolitan Police Department to work with federal officers on a continuing basis, drew praise from the White House.
Trump celebrated her action online, writing, “Wow! Mayor Muriel Bowser of D.C. has become very popular because she worked with me and my great people in bringing CRIME down to virtually NOTHING in D.C.”
Speaking at the Museum of the Bible, Trump added that Bowser may now be closer to his administration’s outlook than before.
“That’s not her ideology, but now I think that maybe is her ideology,” the president said. “She’s taking a lot of heat from the radical left.”