The Trump administration has ordered some Nationwide Guard troops to be armed whereas implementing the controversial crackdown in Washington, D.C., officers stated Monday.
A Protection Division official stated some guard items on sure missions had been instructed beginning on Sunday to hold service handguns or rifles relying on their assigned missions.
A press release from the joint job drive that has taken over policing within the nation’s capital stated the army’s guidelines say drive needs to be used “only as a last resort and solely in response to an imminent threat of death or serious bodily harm.”
Nationwide Guard Members patrol 14th road, working with Washington DC Metro police on August 24, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Photographs)
The protection official stated the armed troops would purpose to determine a regulation enforcement presence all through the capital. These working in transportation or administration would doubtless stay unarmed.
About 2,200 Nationwide Guard and federal regulation enforcement officers are actually patrolling the streets of D.C., drawing sporadic protests from native residents.
The event in Trump’s extraordinary effort to override the regulation enforcement authority of state and native governments comes as he’s contemplating increasing the deployments to different Democratic-led cities, together with Baltimore, Chicago and New York.
The White Home is mounting the trouble regardless of a broad nationwide decline in city crime charges.
Trump can also be escalating a feud with Maryland Democratic Gov. Wes Moore over the president’s potential plan to focus on the state’s largest metropolis with a brand new crackdown.
Not like D.C., Trump might face important authorized hurdles if he seeks to order troops into cities which can be a part of states, the place governors have authority over the Nationwide Guard.
Trump on Friday had stated Chicago would doubtless be the subsequent goal of his crackdown on crime, homelessness and unlawful immigration.
Mayor Brandon Johnson stated his workplace has not acquired communication from the Trump administration about army or federal regulation enforcement deployments in Chicago.
“We have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops,” he stated.
Initially Printed: August 25, 2025 at 8:59 AM EDT
