Trump adds firepower to National Guard presence in DC

The number of National Guard troops patrolling Washington, D.C., will more than double in the coming days after Mississippi, Ohio, South Carolina and West Virginia in the past several days committed troops to President Trump’s federal takeover of the city.

Coupled with indications that the guard members may soon be carrying weapons — a reversal of their initial orders — the new deployments mark a major escalation of Trump’s efforts to take over law enforcement in Washington. 

The roughly 800 D.C. National Guard troops already deployed in the capital will be joined by about 200 personnel from Mississippi, between 300 and 400 from West Virginia, 150 from Ohio and 200 from South Carolina, beefing up a presence that has largely stood idle around typically low-crime, tourist-heavy areas in the city.

“Crime is out of control there, and it’s clear something must be done to combat it,” Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves said in a statement Monday, becoming the latest Republican governor to answer to a Trump administration request to send guard members to Washington.

West Virginia, Ohio and South Carolina, meanwhile, pledged their state troops over the weekend, bolstering Trump’s federal crackdown on crime and homelessness in the Democratic-led city.

Still, some GOP governors are keeping their troops home, including Vermont Gov. Phil Scott (R), who “politely declined” Trump’s request to deploy Vermont National Guard soldiers.

“While public safety is a legitimate concern in cities across the country and certainly in the nation’s capital, in the absence of an immediate emergency or disaster that local and regional first responders are unable to handle, the governor just does not support utilizing the guard for this purpose, and does not view the enforcement of domestic law as a proper use of the National Guard,” Scott’s chief of staff, Jason Gibbs, said in a statement Friday, as reported by Vermont Public.

Gibbs said Scott might have sent a few dozen guard members if it was D.C. officials who were seeking federal assistance with an emergency situation instead.

“But in this case, because it is being hyperpoliticized, the governor doesn’t feel like — and I believe the vast majority of Vermonters don’t feel like — it would be an acceptable and appropriate use of the National Guard,” Gibbs said.

Trump launched the federal takeover of D.C. via an executive order that declared a “crime emergency” in the city, grabbing control of the city’s police department and sending federal agents — including some from the Drug Enforcement Administration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, FBI and Secret Service — to the streets despite a sharp drop in crime since 2023.

Critics say the effort is merely a photo op and a gross militarization of Washington, with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) pushing back on Trump's characterization of the city Monday.

“We don’t have any authority over the D.C. Guard or any other guards, but I think it makes the point that this is not about D.C. crime,” Bowser said of the administration and states deploying National Guard troops to the capital.

“The focus should be on violent crime,” she added. “Nobody is against focusing on driving down any level of violence. And so if this is really about immigration enforcement, the administration should make that plain.”

So far, the guard members in Washington have assisted law enforcement with crowd control and patrolling typically low-crime areas such as landmarks, including the National Mall, Lincoln Memorial and Union Station. 

It is unclear why additional troops have been requested by Trump, as the National Guard’s role has been limited and many have been seen around the city standing idly next to their vehicles. But even with their seemingly uneventful patrols, guard members may soon be armed while out and about.

Initial deployment orders stipulated that the troops would wear body armor but they would not be armed or even have their weapons in their vehicles, according to an Army statement released Thursday.

Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson also told reporters Thursday that the guard members will not be conducting law enforcement activities while in D.C., but they could temporarily detain someone until law enforcement could make an arrest. 

The White House said in a statement Saturday, however, that the National Guard troops “may be armed, consistent with their mission and training, to protect federal assets, provide a safe environment for law enforcement officers to make arrests, and deter violent crime with a visible law enforcement presence.”