What’s Really Going On With Federal Control in Washington, D.C.

By the DCDailyLetter Team, August 18, 2025

Living in Washington, D.C. has never been simple. We’re stuck in this weird space between being America’s front door and just trying to live our lives like any other city. But this week? This week has been something else entirely. On August 11th, President Trump dropped a bombshell that nobody saw coming: federal agents taking over our police department and 800 National Guard troops rolling into our neighborhoods. If you’re feeling confused, worried, or just plain tired of it all, you’re definitely not alone.

So What Actually Happened?

Last Monday felt like any other summer day in D.C. until it wasn’t. President Trump stood up and declared our city was in a “crime emergency,” pulling out some dusty provision from 1973 that nobody’s ever actually used before. Section 740 of the Home Rule Act – yeah, most of us had never heard of it either – suddenly became the most important piece of legislation in our lives.

In one swift move, Mayor Bowser and Police Chief Pamela Smith got pushed aside, and Attorney General Pam Bondi became the person calling the shots for our cops. Eight hundred National Guard members started patrolling our streets, backed up by FBI, ATF, DEA agents, and who knows who else. If you’ve been wondering why downtown feels like a military zone lately, that’s why.

The whole thing apparently started because of what happened to Edward Coristine on August 3rd. He’s a guy who works for the Department of Government Efficiency (yes, that’s a real thing now), and he got badly hurt in an attempted carjacking. Trump pointed to that attack, plus other violent crimes around the city, and basically said we’d been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.” He even called it “Liberation Day” for D.C., which honestly made a lot of us cringe.

The good news – if you can call it that – is that by Friday, August 16th, things had cooled down a bit. After Mayor Bowser and other city officials fought back in court, and a federal judge stepped in to mediate, Trump’s team agreed to let Chief Smith run the police department again. But don’t get too comfortable – those federal agents are still here, and they’re demanding we help with immigration enforcement, which goes against everything our sanctuary city stands for.

Why Is This Even Legal?

Here’s the thing that really gets under people’s skin: Trump can actually do this because we’re not a real state. We’re a federal district, which means Congress and the president have way more power over us than they should. The Home Rule Act from 1973 gave us some independence – we can elect our mayor and city council – but Washington still holds most of the cards.

Section 740 is like this emergency button that presidents can supposedly push if things get really bad. The catch? Nobody’s ever actually pushed it before. We’re the guinea pigs.

Trump keeps talking about rising crime rates, pointing to 2023 when homicides and carjackings really did spike. He’s also going on about homeless camps and calling our city “disgusting” and “embarrassing,” which, let’s be honest, doesn’t feel great to hear when this is your home.

But here’s where it gets interesting – and frustrating. Mayor Bowser and the police department have been putting out numbers that tell a completely different story. Violent crime is down 26% this year compared to last year. Homicides dropped 12%, carjackings are down 37%, and overall violent crime is at a 30-year low after falling 35% in 2024. So either someone’s math is wrong, or this isn’t really about crime at all.

Mayor Bowser called the whole thing “unsettling and unprecedented,” and honestly, most of us are right there with her. Critics are saying this is more about politics than public safety, especially since Trump mentioned doing the same thing to Chicago and Baltimore. It feels like we’re caught in the middle of some larger political game that we never asked to play.

How Are We All Handling This?

Walk around the city and you’ll hear a dozen different opinions about what’s happening. Some people, like Clinique Chapman from the D.C. Justice Lab, are furious. “It’s a power play, and we’re an easy target,” she told reporters, and you can hear that frustration in coffee shops and Metro stations all over town.

Then there are folks who’ve been personally affected by crime – maybe they know someone who got carjacked or mugged – and they’re cautiously hopeful that having more law enforcement around might help. But even they’re nervous about what increased policing might mean for their neighborhoods, especially communities that have complicated relationships with police to begin with.

The National Guard presence is probably the weirdest part for most residents. Seeing soldiers on street corners in your own city is surreal and unsettling, even if they’re supposed to be there to help. People are worried about their daily routines getting disrupted or situations escalating in ways nobody wants.

Mayor Bowser has been trying to keep everyone calm while also making it clear she’s not happy about any of this. She’s tied the whole situation to the ongoing fight for D.C. statehood, pointing out that if we were actually a state, this couldn’t happen to us. “We know our democracy is tenuous,” she said, which is both reassuring and terrifying at the same time.

What Happens Next?

The original plan was for this federal takeover to last 30 days, which would put us at early September. For it to continue beyond that, Congress would need to approve an extension, and that means getting 60 votes in the Senate – including some Democrats. That’s a pretty tall order.

Trump has hinted that he might try to declare a national emergency to get around Congress, but legal experts think that would end up in court pretty quickly. The fact that a federal judge already stepped in and scaled things back suggests the courts aren’t going to just rubber-stamp whatever the administration wants to do.

The biggest ongoing tension right now is over immigration enforcement. The federal government wants our local police to cooperate with ICE and other immigration agencies, but D.C. has been a sanctuary city for years. That’s not just a policy – it’s part of who we are as a community. Watching that get challenged feels like watching our values get attacked.

Living Through History (Whether We Want To Or Not)

At the end of the day, most of us just want to feel safe in our neighborhoods and have a voice in how our city is run. We don’t want to be caught in some political tug-of-war between City Hall and the White House. We want to walk our dogs, grab coffee, take the Metro to work, and go about our lives without feeling like we’re living in some kind of political experiment.

The numbers suggest our city is actually getting safer, which should be good news. But high-profile crimes still happen, and they still scare people, regardless of what the statistics say. The federal response was supposed to make us feel more secure, but for many residents, it’s done the opposite.

As one neighbor put it to me the other day: “We just want to feel safe and heard, not caught in a tug-of-war.” That pretty much sums up how a lot of us are feeling right now.

We’ll keep following this story as it develops, because this is our home and we deserve to know what’s happening in it. For now, we’re all just taking it one day at a time, hoping for some clarity and maybe a little less drama in the weeks ahead.

The DCDailyLetter team continues to monitor this developing situation. We’ll bring you updates as they happen, because staying informed is the best way to stay engaged in our community’s future.