After years of threats going back to his first term, President Donald Trump announced Monday he is taking over the Metropolitan Police Department and deploying the National Guard in D.C.

He unveiled the plans in a more than hourlong news conference where he also discussed clearing homeless encampments and beautifying the city.

“I’m announcing a historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse,” Trump said from the White House press room. “This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back.”

The announcement thrusts crime and homelessness in the nation’s capital into the political conversation like never before. The unprecedented action comes as city leaders insist crime rates have fallen in the last two years, but i

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