National Guard troops near Union Station, where Vice President J.D. Vance says they are protecting against “vagrants.” Aaron Schwartz/AP
Watch out, Chicago drivers.
A recent collision of a red-light-running, 14-ton, mine-resistant armored vehicle with an SUV on Capitol Hill isn’t the biggest news involving the federal takeover of Washington, DC, but it’s a tidy metaphor reflecting the counter-productive, heavily militarized, anti-crime display that President Donald Trump has embarked on. Overriding Washington, DC’s, democracy in the process. And then on Friday, he threatened to repeat the effort in other locations, including the Windy City.
With no landmines or roadside bombs, Washington has no evident need for vehicles explicitly designed for those dangers. Nor has the city been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals,” as Trump said to justify his takeover of the police department and deployment of troops. But the president is nevertheless doubling down on the militarized occupation, and, as with the Capitol Hill incident, collateral damage is mounting.
The Army announced Thursday that the unidentified National Guardsman behind the wheel of the massive vehicle had already received a ticket for running a red light before the collision. The DC resident in the SUV, meanwhile, was reportedly trapped in their car and transported to a nearby hospital to treat a head laceration, which reportedly was not serious.
The military Joint Task Force overseeing troops in the District said after the incident that it “remains committed to the safety of our service members and the public.” But Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s order Friday for National Guard troops in the city to start carrying firearms, despite initial assurances they would be unarmed, struck many DC residents as further endangering their safety.
Vice President JD Vance, in a recent appearance at Union Station, said the train station needs National Guard protection against “vagrants,” “drug addicts,” “chronically homeless,” and “mentally ill” people. One DC resident posted a video Friday in which she described being sexually harassed while walking past Union Station, not by Vance’s “vagrants,” but by a Drug Enforcement agent.
Washington residents disagree. A Washington Post-Schar School poll released the same day found 79 percent of District residents oppose the takeover. Twenty-four percent called Trump’s occupation the city’s biggest problem, versus 22 percent who cited crime and violence as the top issue.
The White House has claimed arrests in DC are up since the takeover began, but they have refused to release detailed information backing those claims. And what data they have revealed suggests that arrests of undocumented immigrants, not violent criminals, account for the increase. The administration also asserts that the federal takeover has led to the dismantling of at least 48 homeless encampments, but lacking any plans for where the homeless will go, that effort appears to prioritize short-term aesthetics over longer-term solutions. Some tent-dwellers already appear to be returning to previously cleared areas.
Residents of varied ages and races, contrary to administration claims, have expressed their displeasure about having federal agents patrolling DC streets, most of them seemingly in areas heavy on tourists and nightlife, as opposed to violent crime. Confrontations between the residents and the agents can be tense.
“You come to our city and this is what you do?” a woman yelled at National Guard troops in a video that showed the aftermath of the Capitol Hill armored car crash. “Seriously?”
On Thursday in the Mount Pleasant neighborhood, where federal agents appear to have left a dildo in the place of an anti-ICE banner they purloined a week before, residents confronted and pursued three apparently off-duty federal agents, cursing at them and taunting them about the sex toy. “Did you forget your dildo?” the woman shooting the video repeatedly asked.
On Friday night on U Street, an area full of bars and restaurants, a large group of FBI and other federal agents took part in arresting a single man for publicly smoking marijuana, according to witnesses. (Possession of marijuana is legal in the District, though public consumption is not.)
“There’s so much other shit happening in this city, and you guys are arresting him for smoking weed?” an onlooker asks feds, who appear embarrassed, in a video posted by independent journalist Hannah Gais. “For weed!”
Such scenes reflect the reality of the model that Trump now says he plans to export to other big cities. He does not seem to understand that his authority in Washington, a federal city with limited home rule, does not extend elsewhere.
But he clearly hopes that his tough-on-crime pose is a political winner, or, at least, a more salient topic than his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein or the wobbling economy.
“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump said from the Oval Office Friday, “and then we’ll help with New York.”
Officials there quickly pushed back. “Donald Trump’s threat to bring the National Guard to Chicago isn’t about safety—it’s a test of the limits of his power and a trial run for a police state,” Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said in a post Friday. “Illinois has long worked with federal law enforcement to tackle crime, but we won’t let a dictator impose his will.”
As for DC, Trump said Friday that he intends to keep National Guard troops in town “as long as I want,” and threatened to fully take over governing the District—an act that would require congressional approval. DC Mayor Muriel Bowser “better get her act straight, ” Trump said, “or she won’t be mayor very long because we’ll take it over with the federal government running like it’s supposed to be run.”
