Several Democrats criticized the Trump administration for mobilizing the National Guard in an effort to address crime in Washington, DC.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore (D), former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-MD) were among the Democrats who criticized the mobilization of the National Guard and other specialized units to the District of Columbia to address crime.
As Breitbart News’s Hannah Knudsen reported, during a press conference on Monday with President Donald Trump, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth revealed that the D.C. National Guard had been mobilized and that it would “be operationalized by the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll.”
During the press conference, Trump also revealed that he was “officially invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act” and that the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) would be placed under “direct federal control.”
“President Trump’s decision to mobilize the National Guard to conduct municipal policing in D.C. lacks seriousness and is deeply dangerous,” Moore said in a statement. “As someone who has served overseas in uniform and is commander-in-chief of the Maryland Guard, I take how, when, and why we deploy members of our armed forces personally and seriously.”
Moore continued to claim that Trump’s actions lacked “both data and a battle plan,” and accused the president of “using honorable men and women as pawns to distract us from his policies.”
“Donald Trump delayed deploying the National Guard on January 6th when our Capitol was under violent attack and lives were at stake,” Pelosi wrote in a post on X. “Now, he’s activating the DC Guard to distract from his incompetent mishandling of tariffs, health care, education and immigration — just to name a few blunders.”
“On January 6, rioters attacked the U.S. Capitol and assaulted the police while Trump stalled on calling in the National Guard,” Ivey said in a statement. “Now, when a former DOGE staffer is assaulted, he suddenly scrambles to call in the Guard and even tries to federalize local police. This is not about public safety. Crime is down in DC. It’s a desperate attempt to distract from the Epstein files and yet another unprecedented and dangerous misuse of our military.”
The mobilization of the D.C. National Guard and placing the MPD under federal control comes in the aftermath of Edward Coristine, a well-known DOGE member called “Big Balls,” being assaulted in Washington, DC. In the aftermath of the assault on Coristine, Trump threatened to take “federal control” of the District of Columbia unless crime was addressed.
Trump also previously ordered law enforcement officers from agencies such as; the U.S. Park Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF), the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and divisions of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to patrol the streets of D.C. for seven days in an effort to crack down on violent crime.
