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Donald Trump called the National Guard in Washington, DC, last August in an attempt to “save” the city from “crime, bloodshed, bed and ignominy and worse.” Since then, the number of soldiers in the capital has ebbed and flowed as states have lent their Guards to the cause. A month ago, there were less than 3,000 members of the National Guard in the area; now there are more than 5,000.
Officially, this “summer increase” was prepared as a way to handle an expected increase in visitors and activity around the capital for America’s ongoing 250th anniversary celebrations. But the National Guard is also involved in a broader project known as the Safe and Beautiful mission—a federal program to clean up a city that Trump once described as “a rat-infested, graffiti-filled mess.” Troops from around the country are currently in the city, but their mission is not entirely clear, and their impact on violent crime remains limited. Eleven months into Trump’s trials, they remain an enduring symbol of the administration’s strength.
Last year, Trump declared a “crime emergency” in the city. Crime is a real problem in DC, as it is in all cities. But the president’s framing of the situation as an emergency deserving of immediate help from outside forces (which are usually called in for civil unrest) doesn’t match the numbers: At the time Trump first deployed the National Guard, violent crime in DC was down for 30 years, according to national trends.
The precise functions involved in keeping DC “safe and beautiful” have so far been poorly defined; Troopers have spent time directing traffic, clearing homeless encampments, raking leaves, and mulching flower beds. Their presence has had a mixed effect on crime in the city. In May, the Niskanen Center was released data showing that deployments were seen to reduce opportunistic property crimes, such as theft, by 24 percent—a significant drop. The data also showed that the deployment had no measurable effect on violent crime, which was already on the decline when the National Guard arrived. (The guards that Trump sent to DC are not authorized to arrest people, but they can detain individuals.) The advantage of the National Guard is its flexibility, Richard Hahn, one of the study’s co-authors, told me. The DC police have been”struggling to hire police officers for 10 years,” he said, but with the Guard, “you can order these soldiers to go to the city and protect it.”
Trump’s decision to send the troops has scared many people who already have no faith in the president. Approx 80 percent of DC residents opposed the arrival of the Guard last year, according to one survey. Fear, like my colleagues Ashley Parker and Nancy A. Youssef to put it at the time, it is that “Washington is being used as a test case – Trump’s directive to deploy the National Guard across the country as a police force – and that Americans are being conditioned to accept authoritarianism.” In February, a report from the Senate Homeland Security Committee indicated that the National Guard was using advanced data collection tools (including the Defense Department’s AI-enabled Maven Smart System) to support its missions, raising “privacy and civil liberties concerns.”
Since the National Guard arrived in DC, troops have been criticized for seeming to spend too much time standing around. Just standing around it may be part of law enforcement—being a visible presence on the streets is one way to prevent opportunistic crime—but it also causes concern. Jeffrey Butts, director of the Center for Research and Evaluation at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, told me that the fear this deployment has created may be part of the reason. “This is not about crime, and it’s not about the police,” he said. “It’s politics and a demonstration of government power.”
Most Republican-led states have sent their Guardsmen to the capital, but a few states with Democratic governors have also quietly supported it. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer sent about 170 of her state’s National Guard to DC as part of a summer operation. This week, the union of guards and observers signed a letter calling on him to withdraw state troopers and expressing concern that the Guard is conducting operations unrelated to July 4 celebrations. “When governors place their guard forces in the hands of the Trump administration, they trust the Trump administration not to abuse their guard forces,” Elizabeth Goitein, a contributor to Atlantic and the executive director of the Brennan Center for Justice—the organization that signed the letter—told me. “The administration, to put it mildly, has not earned that trust.”
Whitmer himself has expressed doubts about the administration’s plans for the military. About two weeks ago, he wrote his own letter to the head of the Michigan National Guard warning him to “take all necessary steps” to keep the state’s troops focused on beefing up security for the festivities—and diverting them from the Safer and Better mission. He added that if the leadership of the Michigan National Guard is unwilling or unable to keep them focused on security for the anniversary celebrations, he plans to withdraw the troops altogether.
Another blue state governor, Tim Walz, recently made the decision to pull the Minnesota Guard out of DC earlier than expected, although the state’s National Guard spokesman. he told the AP that the decision was based on the “successful conclusion of the ceremony.” The AP also reported this week that one member of the Kentucky Guard who was deployed to DC had been excluded from the 250th anniversary celebrations “without the knowledge or consent” of the state’s governor or his Guard command, according to a spokesman for the Democratic governor. The guard returned to Kentucky before the main event began. Hawaii’s Adjutant General, Maj. Gen. Stephen F. Logan, confirmed to me that the state’s military, which began their duties in DC on Monday, will not be supporting the Safety and Security mission either.
The longer these soldiers remain in the city, the greater the fear and anger. The tension between the people and the soldiers has already started explode in violence; in November, two Guardsmen were shot and seriously injured. The deployment may have reduced certain types of crime, but there is more than one way to measure its impact on the city.
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Today’s news
- The Trump administration removed two members of the bipartisan Election Assistance Commission and accepting the resignation of another, and leaving an independent body to manage elections without commissioners, the White House announced yesterday; The move, it said, was part of its efforts to win elections.
- President Trump he said he would not sign a bipartisan housing bill despite being passed by Congress. The settlement measure will still become law without his signature.
- Trump said that the United States has accepted Iran’s request to continue talks but the ceasefire is “over” after many days of strikes between the two countries. Qatari negotiators met with Iranian officials today to discuss traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, according to Reuters.
Dispatches
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Evening Read
The Rosenberg Boys
By Amy Weiss-Meyer
For those old enough to remember, Michael and Robby Meeropol will always be the Rosenberg boys.
I never knew them like that, but it’s not hard to imagine what they looked like, in part because there are so many pictures. In one, from June 1953, they sit outside the White House wearing shirts and ties, wool coats, and Brooklyn Dodgers hats. Six-year-old Robby holds his grandmother’s hand; to his right stands the rabbi…
Out of the frame, but recorded in other images of the day, are the placards that the protestors carried calling for Robby and Michael, the poor boys made signs of what many believed to be a great injustice that would be done against their parents. (Opponents, carrying signs that say fry and executionersthey do not agree.) Similar events were played out all over the world. After Pope Pius XII called for mercy, the Vatican newspaper mentioned “two innocent little people on whose souls and fate the death of their parents would forever leave terrible scars.”
I learned the broad outline of what happened next—the electric chair, and the orphan that left them—half a century later, on a weekend visit to the home of my parents’ friends Robby and Elli in western Massachusetts.
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Rafaela Jinich contributed to this magazine.
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