President Donald Trump is threatening to enact a full federal takeover of the nation's capital, accusing Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser of disseminating "inaccurate crime figures."
"Mayor Muriel Bowser must immediately stop giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures, or bad things will happen, including a complete and total federal takeover of the city!" Trump said in a Truth Social post early Friday. "Washington, D.C. will soon be great again!
"Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN!" he also said in the post. "The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job. They are out in force, and are NOT PLAYING GAMES!!! As bad as it sounds to say, there were no murders this week for the first time in memory."
Last week, Trump issued an order directing the mayor to "provide the services of the Metropolitan Police force for federal purposes" and issued a memorandum directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "to mobilize the District of Columbia National Guard and order members to active service" to tackle the city's crime problem.
Trump also threatened a full takeover of the district earlier this month, posting on Truth Social that, "If D.C. doesn't get its act together, and quickly, we will have no choice but to take federal control of the city, and run this city how it should be run, and put criminals on notice that they're not going to get away with it anymore."
The president told Newsmax in an interview airing on Thursday that the federal takeover of the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department is a "test" that could serve as a model for other cities.
"We're doing a sort of a test right now in D.C. It's working unbelievably, much faster than we thought," Trump said in an interview with "The Todd Starnes Show" that re-aired on "Greg Kelly Reports" on Thursday night.
"We've arrested hundreds of criminals — hard-line criminals, people that will never be any good, I don't care what they say," the president added. "We got them out of the system. And, you know, unfortunately, we have a lot of cities like that."
After his interview with Starnes, Trump visited a command center in Washington to thank law enforcement officers for their efforts to clean up the city. Trump also told Starnes he would be going on a "secret patrol" with law enforcement Thursday night.
"I've straightened out crime in four days in D.C.," he said. "All they do is say, 'He's a dictator.' The people are getting mugged all over the place. But we've got it going. People are so happy. They're going out to restaurants again. I mean, they're so happy."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.