Trump declares 'liberation day' in Washington, DC

Ahead of a 10 am press conference on Monday, President Donald Trump announced that the day would be "liberation day" for Washington, DC, the nation's capital. Trump recently promised that he would clean up crime in the city and to that end, called in federal law enforcement to augment the Metropolitan Police Department.

"LIBERATION DAY IN D.C. WE ARE TAKING OUR CAPITAL BACK!!!" Trump said first on Truth Social.

A short time later, Trump posted, "Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today! Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!! Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT"

"We have a capital that’s very unsafe," Trump said to reporters last week. "We have to run DC." On Truth Social, Trump said, "If DC 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."

Trump penned an executive order in March that created the Making DC Safe and Beautiful Task Force. The deployment of federal law enforcement officers from the FBI, DEA, and Homeland Security Investigations and others began on Thursday.

DC is governed by local elected leaders, and has been since the Home Rule Act of 1973, prior to which the city was governed by Congress. DC does not have voting representation in the US House or Senate. 

The city has long been plagued by crime, but recent years have seen high numbers of homicides and violent crime. Some of those numbers came down in recent years, per the Metro PD. However, the police union has accused the department of downplaying violent crimes, intentionally under-reporting the severity of crimes by classifying them as something lesser.

Trump has promised to make the parks safe as well as to put an end to violent crime on city streets. Recent crimes that have gained national attention include the random, shooting death of a congressional staffer near a Metro stop, the assassination of a young couple who worked for the Israeli embassy, and a violent attack on a DOGE employee who was trying to protect a woman from the same fate.

Half of carjacking arrests in the city since 2023 have been committed by minors, some as young as 12 years old. DC has also abolished cash bail. In 2024, there were 112 homicides in DC per the Metro PD, and already in 2025, there have been 99, with 5 months left to go.