Black civil rights leaders and the mayors of several cities on Tuesday denounced the deployment of the National Guard to the nation’s capital to combat crime, calling it “fundamentally grandstanding” and “a federal coup.”
And by suggesting that other cities, also run by Black mayors, may be next, President Donald Trump was “playing the worst game of racially divisive politics,” one rights leader said.
Trump announced Monday that he would deploy 800 guard members to Washington, D.C., suggesting that the same could happen in New York City, Baltimore, Chicago and Oakland, California.
“When you walk down the street, you’re going to see police or you’re going to see FBI agents,” Trump said about Washington on Monday. “And we will bring in the military if it’s needed.”
Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said the president’s actions and words were racially polarizing, considering crime rates in these cities are largely declining.
“This is a distraction at a time when these cities deserve credit because crime and violence are down in most American cities right now, and this is trying to distract from that success, and in effect, create a de facto police state in these cities,” Morial told NBC News.
“He’s playing the worst game of racially divisive politics, and that’s all it is,” Morial said.
The Rev. Al Sharpton, the civil rights leader and head of the National Action Network, said in a statement that “the people of Washington, D.C. ‒ especially those living on the streets, who need the most care ‒ will suffer, alongside the core principles of our Democracy.”
And NAACP president Derrick Johnson questioned the declaration of an emergency in D.C., calling it a “federal coup.”
The White House responded to the criticisms in a statement to NBC News: “There is nothing divisive about cracking down on crime in our nation’s capital to make it safer and more beautiful for all residents and visitors from all around the world,” said White House assistant press secretary Taylor Rogers. “Instead of criticizing the President’s lawful actions to Make DC Safe Again, Democrat-run cities plagued by violent crime should focus on cleaning up their own streets. This is why Democrats continue to be so unpopular among everyday Americans — they think the President of the United States cracking down on crime in our nation’s capital is a bad thing.”
Trump federalized the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department over the weekend and called the nation’s capital “one of the most dangerous cities in the world.” It followed the fatal shooting of a congressional intern in July and the carjacking of a former Department of Government Efficiency staffer in D.C. last week, resulting in the arrest of two teenagers.
Even with these violent acts, crime in D.C., has been declining for years and is currently at a 30-year low, according to the Justice Department. Nationwide, violent crime has declined, specifically murders, rape, aggravated assault and robbery, according to data released last week by the FBI.
Black Americans are four times more likely to experience homelessness in their lifetimes than white Americans, according to a 2023 study published in the Journal of Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities.
The D.C. police union, citing staffing shortages and “mismanagement,” said it supported the federal takeover, but only in a limited, temporary capacity that resulted in a better resourced department.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said Trump’s move, which he had hinted at for months, is “unsettling and unprecedented.” The administration forced the removal of the Black Lives Matter street painting that had been prominent in the city since 2020 by threatening to hold back millions in funding if it remained.
On Monday, Bowser said that the city’s police chief maintains authority over the police force. But Trump said that he had appointed the administrator of the Drug Enforcement Agency, Terry Cole, as the head of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Morial said that while many National Guards are his friends, “this is not an assignment they were trained for. This is not an assignment they signed up for. They’re being used as political pawns.
“What the White House should be doing is restoring the SNAP cuts and restoring the Medicaid cuts, which are going to do damage to Washington, D.C., and other urban communities,” Morial said.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott was not happy Trump mentioned his city as a potential place where the National Guard would be deployed.
“This is the latest effort by the president to distract from the issues he should be focused on — including the roller coaster of the U.S. economy thanks to his policies,” Scott said in a statement Monday. “When it comes to public safety in Baltimore, he should turn off the right-wing propaganda and look at the facts.”
Homicides are down 28% in Baltimore this year alone, reaching the lowest level of any year on record, with overall crime rates lower than it’s been in more than 50 years. “We still have real work to do to build on this progress—but that work starts and ends here in Baltimore with the local, state, and federal partners who have gotten us this far.”
And as Scott pointed out, “it’s not just Baltimore.” In Chicago, violent crime also is down by more than 30% and shootings almost 40%. Mayor Brandon Johnson said the dramatic reductions occurred even as Trump cut “$158 million in funding for violence prevention programs in cities like Chicago,” as well as Los Angeles, New York, D.C. and Baltimore.
Those cuts, he said, are on top of the Trump administration dismantling the Office of Gun Violence Prevention and terminating hundreds of grants for anti-violence programs across the country.
“If President Trump wants to help make Chicago safer, he can start by releasing the funds for anti-violence programs that have been critical to our work to drive down crime and violence,” Johnson said. “Sending in the National Guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts.”
The mayor of Savannah, Georgia, Van R. Johnson II, president of the African American Mayors Association, said that while he respects the federal government’s responsibility over ensuring national security, deploying the National Guard in D.C. “may not be the most productive approach, especially when local leaders and law enforcement are already making significant strides in reducing crime and improving community trust.”
Johnson implored the Trump administration to work with mayors and to “support solutions that strengthen law enforcement partnerships and community engagement.”
Republicans backed Trump’s move. Rep. James Comer, of Kentucky, chair of the House oversight committee, said in a statement: “For years, the D.C. Council’s radical soft-on-crime agenda has emboldened criminals and put public safety at risk in our nation’s capital.”
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, of New York, the House Democratic leader, vehemently disagreed, saying the action will be a negative force against “the city’s youth and homeless population.”