President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could avoid congressional approval to extend his 30-day federal takeover of Washington’s police, amid his efforts to wrest control of the capital’s law enforcement.
Trump this week invoked the Home Rule Act, effectively handing the executive branch control over Washington’s police for up to 30 days. Beyond that, Trump would have to go through Congress for an extension authorization.
But during his speech announcing the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees on Wednesday, Trump repeatedly floated circumventing Congress to maintain his hold over the city’s law enforcement.
“If it’s a national emergency we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly,” Trump said.
Trump appeared to be banking on the support of congressional Republicans to push through any attempt to extend the 30 day takeover — but maintained that if lawmakers failed to approve the extension, he would go forward with the move on his own by declaring a national emergency.
“I don’t want to call a national emergency,” Trump said, before adding, “If I have to, I will.”
Trump also announced that he was working with congressional Republicans to put forward a crime bill initially targeted at Washington but intended as a “beacon” for other Democratic cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.
“We’re going to need a crime bill that we’re going to be putting in, and it’s going to pertain initially to D.C.,” Trump said. “We’re going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days.”
California already felt the repercussions of the Trump administration’s targeting earlier this summer, when the president deployed the National Guard to help quell protests against immigration detention sweeps in Los Angeles.
Trump on Monday announced that he was taking control over Washington’s police force and deploying the National Guard to patrol the city’s streets. Citing a rise in violent crime — which local leaders have disputed, pointing to statistics showing the city hitting a 30-year low last year — Trump declared that Monday was “Liberation Day” for the city, and invoked a never-been-used statute of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act allowing the president to take control over the local police in cases of emergency.
So far, D.C. leadership has been playing nice with the president, with Mayor Muriel Bowser calling the move “unsettling and unprecedented” — but still saying the city would comply with Trump’s order.
The president on Wednesday added that he would be “going to Congress for a relatively small amount of money” to “fix up” the nation’s capital, including fixing potholes and getting rid of medians in the city’s roads.
Asked about the prospect of D.C. statehood, which the city’s leaders have long pushed for without success, Trump called the efforts “ridiculous” and “unacceptable,” saying the overwhelmingly blue city would “pick up two senators, and that’s not going to happen.”
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