President Donald Trump on Monday declared a “crime emergency” in Washington, D.C., and announced plans to deploy National Guard troops to help patrol the city. Standing alongside Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Attorney General Pam Bondi, Trump criticized D.C.’s local leadership, blaming them for rising crime and pointing specifically to the city’s elimination of cash bail as a root cause of the issue.

“This dire public safety crisis stems directly from the abject failures of the city’s local leadership,” Trump said. He argued that jurisdictions with no-cash-bail policies are “a disaster,” despite the fact that Washington, D.C., effectively ended cash bail in 1992. Trump also pledged to work with Congress to reverse such policies in other cities like Chicago.

In a surprise move, Trump named DEA Administrator Terry Cole as interim head of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department, describing him as one of the nation’s best law enforcement officials. Trump cited Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to place the city’s police department under temporary federal control — marking the first time the law has been invoked since the Act’s passage in 1973.

The Home Rule Act allows the president to federalize D.C.’s police for up to 48 hours in an emergency. Extending control beyond 30 days requires congressional approval, though it remains unclear whether Trump has initiated that process.

Trump also vowed to remove homeless individuals from D.C., offering relocation “far from the Capital,” and declared that criminals would be jailed. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser rejected Trump’s statements, calling them “hyperbolic and false.”