UPDATED: Donald Trump said Monday that he was deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C. and placing the city's Metropolitan Police under federal control.

Portraying the capital city as a crime-ridden hellhole, Trump told reporters that the city "is becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness."

"We're taking our capital back," Trump said.

Attorney General Pam Bondi will oversee the city's police department. She was present along with Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox News host, FBI director Kash Patel, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum.

While there is a crime problem in D.C., and while stats are meaningless to victims, the rate actual fell last year, per the Metropolitan Police, with violent crime down 26%. Back in April, Ed Martin, then serving as Trump's acting U.S. attorney in the district, trumpeted the decrease.

Trump also has announced efforts to clean up the city and rid the area of homeless encampments, and said the city would no longer be a sanctuary for illegal aliens.

Even before Trump's announcement, which was expected, Democrats cast it as an effort to change the subject from a sputtering economy and continued inflation, as well as the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. And as the president has tried to characterize himself as a president of law and order, opponents point to his pardoning of those who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, including those who attacked police officers.

Trump posited cases of suspects spitting on cops, and said that the federalized D.C. police force will be able to do "whatever the hell they want."

As Trump spoke, protesters were gathered on 16th Street, near Lafayette Park, singing "D.C. is our home. You can't have it Trump." In the 2024 election, Kamala Harris received 90% of the district vote compared to Trump. The president also has created further dismay among city residents with the mass layoffs of federal workers, which has been a gut punch to the region's economy.

The president's action is his latest effort to exert more control over D.C. and its institutions in his second term. He ousted Biden-appointed board members of the Kennedy Center and ensured that he was named chairman, while ousting the Librarian of Congress and paving over the grass lawn near the White House Rose Garden.