WASHINGTON — In early 2023, candidate Donald Trump pledged to “take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it, and rebuild our capital city so that it’s no longer a nightmare of murder and crime.”

On August 11, President Donald Trump announced he would federalize the district’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy the National Guard in D.C.

In response, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser shared that she has a different goal: to “protect our autonomy.” Bowser says she is ready to work with Trump to fight crime, even as she maintains that crime in the nation’s capital is at a “30-year low.”

Caution: The district’s reported violent crime rate for 2024 was more than double that of Las Vegas — 1,005 per 100,000 residents versus 430, according to

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