WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has taken control of D.C.’s law enforcement and ordered National Guard troops to deploy onto the streets of the nation’s capital, arguing the extraordinary moves are necessary to curb an urgent public safety crisis.

Even as district officials questioned the claims underlying his emergency declaration, the Republican president promised a “historic action to rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse.” His rhetoric echoed that used by conservatives going back decades who have denounced cities, especially those with majority non-white populations or led by progressives, as lawless or crime-ridden and in need of outside intervention.

“This is liberation day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital b

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