WASHINGTON - President Donald Trump declared victory in the nation's capital, 10 days after announcing the federal takeover of the Washington metro police force to “rescue” the city from crime.

Trump on Aug. 21 met with law enforcement officers who had been deployed to patrol the city he recently described as rampant with “crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor.”

The president arrived at the United States Park Police facility in Anacostia Park Thursday evening and offered words of encouragement to law enforcement officers. He brought hamburgers and pizzas for the crowd.

“The numbers are down like we wouldn’t believe, but we believe it,” he told the crowd. Among those who attended were officers from the National Guard, FBI, U.S. Marshals and the Washington DC Metropolitan Police Department. “We've had some incredible results. The results have come out and it's like a different place. It's like a different city."

"To me, I feel very safe now," he added.

On Aug. 11, Trump deployed 800 National Guard troops in Washington DC, declaring a public safety emergency. Several Republican states including Ohio, Mississippi, West Virginia and Louisiana have sent guardsmen to the capital to support the Trump Administration's efforts. The troops are deployed at tourist-heavy locations such as the National Mall and transit hubs such as Union Station and Metro stops to aid local law enforcement.

Since the deployment of the troops, carjackings have decreased by 83%, robberies by 46%, car thefts by 21%, and overall violent crime by 22% compared to the previous seven days, according to Metropolitan Police Department’s police union.

But crime had already been on the decline. Violent crime in Washington, DC, dropped 26% through Aug. 8, 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, according to data from the Metropolitan Police Department. However, the city had the fourth-highest homicide rate among U.S. cities, after St. Louis, New Orleans and Detroit, at 27.3 per 100,000 residents in 2024.

“It's the capital. It's going to be the best in the world,” Trump said.

“We're going back to Congress for some money, and we're going to redo a lot of the pavement, a lot of the medians…the graffiti's all coming off real fast,” he said.

He then pivoted to his latest passion project: building a 90,000 square foot ballroom in the White House.

“They've been after a ballroom for 150 years, but they never had a real estate guy,” he said. “As a president, I've done a lot of ballrooms and we're going to make this one the best of them all.”

Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy is a White House Correspondent for USA TODAY. You can follow her on X @SwapnaVenugopal

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump declares victory in Washington DC after takeover of metro police

Reporting by Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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