Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington for President Trump’s law enforcement crackdown will be armed, the Pentagon said Friday.
The Defense Department didn’t immediately offer any other details about the new development or why it was needed.
The step is a escalation in Mr. Trump’s intervention into policing in the nation’s capital and comes as nearly 2,000 National Guard members are stationed in the city, with the arrival this week of hundreds of troops from several Republican-led states.
The Pentagon and Army said last week that troops would not carry weapons. The new guidance is that they will carry their service-issued weapons.
National Guard personnel have been deployed in D.C. since last week, when Mr. Trump ordered the D.C. Guard to crack down on what he has called an “epidemic of crime.” Federal agents have also patrolled the city, and the president has asserted control over the local Metropolitan Police Department.
It was unclear if the guard’s role in the federal intervention could be changing. The troops have not taken part in law enforcement and largely have been protecting landmarks including the National Mall and Union Station and helping with crowd control.
Some troops have fed squirrels. One Guard member helped a woman carry her belongings down the stairs in a train station. Others have been seen taking photos with passers-by, standing around chatting and drinking coffee. There have been no overt indications they have faced threats that would require weapons.
On Thursday, Mr. Trump visited a U.S. Park Police facility in southeast D.C., and handed out hamburgers and pizza as he thanked federal law enforcement. A day before, Hegseth as well as Vice President JD Vance and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller visited National Guard members at Union Station.
Mr. Trump has insisted that people he knows feel safer than before in the city, but local officials say the initiative is unnecessary. After spiking in 2023, violent crime in D.C. has been declining for the last year and a half, according to local police data. Mr. Trump has claimed that crime is on the upswing.
The city’s police department and the offices of Mayor Muriel Bowser and Attorney General Brian Schwalb did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The city had been informed about the intent for the National Guard to be armed, a person familiar with the conversations said earlier this week. The person was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Spokespeople for the District of Columbia National Guard and a military task force overseeing all the guard troops in Washington did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment.