{"id":12285,"date":"2025-08-13T18:02:08","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T18:02:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-floats-circumventing-congress-to-maintain-control-of-dc-police\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T18:02:08","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T18:02:08","slug":"trump-floats-circumventing-congress-to-maintain-control-of-dc-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/trump-floats-circumventing-congress-to-maintain-control-of-dc-police\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump floats circumventing Congress to maintain control of DC police"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could avoid congressional approval to extend his 30-day federal takeover of Washington\u2019s police, amid his efforts to wrest control of the capital\u2019s law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Trump this week invoked the Home Rule Act<\/a>, effectively handing the executive branch control over Washington\u2019s police for up to 30 days. Beyond that, Trump would have to go through Congress for an extension authorization.<\/p>\n

But during his speech announcing the 2025 Kennedy Center honorees on Wednesday, Trump repeatedly floated circumventing Congress to maintain his hold over the city\u2019s law enforcement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it’s a national emergency we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly,\u201d Trump said.<\/p>\n

Trump appeared to be banking on the support of congressional Republicans to push through any attempt to extend the 30 day takeover \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t want to call a national emergency,\u201d Trump said, before adding, \u201cIf I have to, I will.\u201d<\/p>\n

Trump also announced that he was working with congressional Republicans to put forward a crime bill initially targeted at Washington but intended as a \u201cbeacon\u201d for other Democratic cities such as New York, Chicago and Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’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.,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe’re going to be asking for extensions on that, long-term extensions, because you can’t have 30 days.\u201d<\/p>\n

California already felt the repercussions of the Trump administration\u2019s targeting earlier this summer, when the president deployed the National Guard to help quell protests against immigration detention sweeps in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n

Trump on Monday announced that he was taking control over Washington\u2019s police force and deploying the National Guard to patrol the city\u2019s streets. Citing a rise in violent crime \u2014 which local leaders have disputed, pointing to statistics showing the city hitting a 30-year low last year \u2014 Trump declared that Monday was \u201cLiberation Day<\/a>\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

So far, D.C. leadership has been playing nice with the president, with Mayor Muriel Bowser calling the move \u201cunsettling and unprecedented\u201d \u2014 but still saying the city<\/a> would comply with Trump\u2019s order.<\/p>\n

The president on Wednesday added that he would be \u201cgoing to Congress for a relatively small amount of money\u201d to \u201cfix up\u201d the nation\u2019s capital, including fixing potholes and getting rid of medians in the city\u2019s roads.<\/p>\n

Asked about the prospect of D.C. statehood, which the city\u2019s leaders have long pushed for without success, Trump called the efforts \u201cridiculous\u201d and \u201cunacceptable,\u201d saying the overwhelmingly blue city would \u201cpick up two senators, and that’s not going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump on Wednesday suggested that he could avoid congressional approval to extend his 30-day federal takeover of Washington\u2019s police, amid his efforts to wrest control of the capital\u2019s law enforcement. Trump this week invoked the Home Rule Act, effectively handing the executive branch control over Washington\u2019s police for up to 30 days. Beyond […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12285","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}