Trump Officials Reveal D.C. Takeover Is First Step to Military State

Sudden federal takeovers of America’s cities will apparently be the new normal under the Trump administration.

Several government officials, including one senior administration official, told Rolling Stone Wednesday that it is now a priority to normalize military deployments to cities across the country.

Trump deployed 800 National Guard members to Washington Monday, federalizing the capital’s police department to combat what he described as a crime-riddled hellscape. To justify the government infringement, the country’s most powerful Republican pointed to rising crime rates, immigrant populations, and homelessness—though the figures he used were from 2023, before violent crime plummeted across the nation.

“He’s gonna do more of them,” one Trump administration official told Rolling Stone, referring to wielding the military against the nation’s metropolises. “He promised he would do this and now he’s following through on those promises.”

During a press conference Monday announcing the imminent takeover, Trump warned that several of America’s liberal bastions could experience the same fate.

“We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then, of course, you have Baltimore and Oakland. You don’t even mention them anymore, they’re so far gone,” Trump said, before promising that Washington would be cleaned up “very quick.”

When asked explicitly if other cities were next on his list, Trump said, “We’re just going to see what happens. We’re going to have tremendous success with what we’re doing.

“Other cities are hopefully watching this … and maybe they’ll self-clean up and maybe they’ll self-do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all the things that caused the problem,” he continued.“We’re going to look at New York in a little while. Let’s do this together.”

Other members of the administration quickly picked up on the rhetoric. Speaking with Fox Business on Tuesday, assistant secretary for public affairs at the Department of Homeland Security Tricia McLaughlin claimed that the White House’s efforts to forcibly clean up what she described as a “plague of crime” could be a “blueprint” for more federal takeovers across the country.

Speaking with Fox News that same day, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth refused to acknowledge a time limit on Trump’s capital takeover.