Elected Democrats at every level of government are watching the Trump administration’s moves to police the District of Columbia closely, worrying that the president’s efforts to exert more power will reach their cities next.
President Donald Trump on Monday announced that he put the city’s police department under federal control and activated the National Guard to patrol the city, evoking another instance from earlier this year that put Democrats on edge: Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles. As Trump paints U.S. cities as “violent” and “drugged out,” he said his administration plans to crack down on homeless encampments and crime in America’s urban centers with full force “starting with D.C.”
He promised that federal involvement would “go further,” and suggested cities could avoid federal action if they “clean up” their crime rates. Democrats say they’re starting to identify a pattern of federal overreach from Trump, particularly in the affairs of cities in states run by Democrats.
“With Donald Trump, you can get any level of reaction on any given day, and he believes that he has some special privilege to interfere and meddle with the functions of New York City,” Keith Powers, a New York City council member, told NOTUS. “He did it on congestion pricing and transportation, and certainly he’ll do it again in the future when it comes to deploying the National Guard.”
Part of Trump’s argument is that he’s putting a stop to crime. But in the District of Columbia and other large cities run by Democrats, city officials have spent months boasting about their dropping crime rates. That’s prompting fears from officials there that the improving statistics they’re citing won’t be enough to fend off the threat of Trump sending in the National Guard.
“We’ve seen great results over the last few months of decreasing major crimes and keeping people safe here in the city,” Powers said. “So even the timing of this feels strange to me, and feels like another attempt for Donald Trump to just threaten people that don’t agree with his ideology.”
Democratic lawmakers in some blue states were already gearing up to respond to military enforcement after Trump in June called for expanded deportations in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. But Monday’s announcement prompted a new wave of concerns, especially after Trump said he was going to “look at” the administration’s next steps for those three cities, as well as in Oakland and Baltimore. He added that the administration will “do the same thing” if necessary in other cities.
Oakland City Council member Charlene Wang told NOTUS that she is not “anticipating it’s going to happen in the next day,” but that she is taking Trump’s comments seriously.
“It’s time to start thinking how we as a city need to respond if this becomes a reality,” Wang said, adding that she plans to have conversations with her city government colleagues about legal recourse and other potential responses.
The White House did not respond to questions about its plans for other cities, but an official pointed NOTUS to Washington’s 2024 crime rates.
“In just a few nights, President Trump’s bold actions to Make DC Safe Again have already removed dangerous weapons and illegal drugs from DC streets — and that’s not even taking into account the countless potential crimes that were deterred thanks to a large, visible law enforcement presence,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote in a statement. “This is just another promise made, promise kept for President Trump.”
In the District of Columbia, there seemed to be little shock about what was happening across her city from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who said she’d been forced long ago to consider the possibility of Trump trying to take power away from her administration.
“While this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we’re totally surprised,” Bowser told reporters Monday, later briefly referencing Trump’s moves in California.
Without statehood, the District of Columbia isn’t afforded the same constitutional protections as most other places to fight back. But how far the administration can go in exerting itself in other places remains an open question.
The Trump administration is embroiled in legal battles over its deployment of the California National Guard and the U.S. Marines into the streets of Los Angeles. Bypassing Gov. Gavin Newsom, Trump issued sweeping orders earlier this summer for troops to crack down on protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Federal judges are actively considering the legality of those orders in an ongoing trial.
Los Angeles City Council member Monica Rodriguez told NOTUS that the administration’s previous actions in her city make the threat of yet another round of federal law enforcement expansion especially concerning.
“You see individuals with semiautomatic weaponry and fatigues roaming your street,” Rodriguez said. “It’s intended to inflict fear among residents, and that’s, sadly, apparently been the posture of this president.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s office told NOTUS that city officials have been “closely monitoring” the situation unfolding in the District of Columbia.
“Portland remains a proud Sanctuary City within a Sanctuary State, and we continue to actively oppose federal overreach through coordinated legal efforts,” a spokesperson for Wilson wrote, adding that the city has also seen violent crime decrease this year thanks to “local strategies and community-based interventions.”
Elected officials in other parts of the country are also nervous, citing fears that the president could set his sights on other blue cities, including those outside his initial list of targets.
Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas guessed that his city was not named in Trump’s announcement because it’s in a Republican-controlled state, affording it a level of protection against the administration’s law enforcement agenda.
“They don’t really care about scaring Missourians or Kansans, because they’re already voting this way, at least the majority,” Lucas told NOTUS.
Trump did not explicitly name several red-state cities with high homicide and other crime rates, like Memphis or New Orleans, in his announcement, focusing instead on cities in Democratic strongholds.
But Lucas added he’s worried that if Trump follows through on expanding federal troops in more cities, Kansas City could see a growing cycle of “retaliatory violence,” while issues like the need for more law enforcement at big events go ignored.
Chicago alderman Raymond Lopez told NOTUS he wasn’t convinced that “Trump is going to weaponize the National Guard against cities like Chicago.”
He said he was more fearful that the city’s mayor and Illinois’ governor, who have been high-profile critics of the administration, are provoking Trump, which could lead the president to retaliate against the city in other ways. One of his worries was that the administration would pull federal funds, which Trump has already threatened.
“It’s long overdue for our mayor and governor to go meet with Donald Trump to see where there are any areas of cooperation possible,” Lopez said. “Continuously poking the bear is going to wind up getting Chicago bit by that bear.”
Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson did not respond to a request for comment.
Some Democrats in Congress joined in with local Democratic lawmakers in decrying Trump’s eagerness to send troops to U.S. cities.
“With D.C. crime at a 30-year low, he’s sending in the Guard in an authoritarian power grab. We must stand against it, or other cities will be next,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who represents part of New York City, posted Monday on X.
The threat of Trump sending soldiers into their backyards puts Democrats in a precarious situation as they weigh their next moves. Several leaders were reticent to comment. Spokespeople for Philadelphia’s and Phoenix’s mayors declined to comment when reached by NOTUS. And spokespeople for the mayors of other major blue-state cities including Denver, Boston and San Diego didn’t respond.
Some of that silence from local officials could be because they are figuring out how to move forward strategically, said LiJia Gong, the policy and legal director at Local Progress, a progressive organization that works on economic policy and promoting racial justice at the local level.
She argued that city leaders should take Trump’s threats seriously.
“Everyone should be preparing, and the threats should be taken at face value,” she said.