SAFE SPACES

Pentagon Pete Ramps Up Military Force in Trump’s ‘Safe’ D.C.

The president has repeatedly declared victory over crime in the capital. Now his Pentagon chief is sending in Humvees, military trucks, and boats.

President Donald Trump’s D.C. crime “miracle” now apparently requires Humvees.

After more than a year of bragging that he made the nation’s capital “one of the safest cities” in the world, his administration is sending in more military muscle.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, 46, has authorized National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., to deploy boats, dozens of marked police cruisers, Humvees, and Army cargo trucks, according to Politico.

According to a memo obtained by Politico, the Pentagon authorized the buildup on Oct. 29, just five days before the midterms. The Pentagon confirmed the deployment but offered no explanation for its timing beyond the “crime emergency” the president declared in 2025.

Under Hegseth’s new order, which runs through the end of the year, Guard members will drive military vehicles through the capital to support police drug raids, though they will not be permitted to pursue suspects or make arrests.

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On the water, Guard boats will provide “perimeter security” during police operations targeting suspected gang leaders and drug traffickers in southeast Washington’s Anacostia neighborhood.

According to the memo, the boats will not be used to surveil U.S. citizens. Hegseth also ordered that federal officers “must always be on board” Guard vessels to help apprehend suspects who attempt to escape by jumping into the water.

Despite the expanded mission, troops are barred from carrying bayonets or operating helicopters.

It’s a striking escalation for a president who has made a point of declaring victory over crime in the capital, even going so far as to say, “Everybody is safe now. We’re going to have the best capital ever,” when the first troops arrived in the city in August 2025.

A mere four days into the takeover, Trump declared on Truth Social that the capital had gone from the “most unsafe” city in America to “perhaps the safest, and getting better every single hour!”

A month into the takeover, Trump touted “now VERY SAFE WASHINGTON, D.C.” as proof that a “no crime ‘miracle’” occurs the moment he announces troops are on the way. “ONLY I CAN SAVE THEM!!!” he wrote in the Truth Social post, which came a day after he said he was sending the Guard into Memphis.

But the crime statistics paint a more complicated picture than Trump’s promised “miracle.”

An October Cato Institute report found thefts fell by about 44 a week and robberies by about five a week after the troops arrived. But homicides remained roughly unchanged, while assaults with a dangerous weapon increased by about three per week.

The Guard has also spent considerable time on less militaristic duties, including spreading mulch and hauling away more than 500 bags of trash, as the Daily Beast reported last year.

And the deployment has hardly been cheap.

In August, Pentagon officials told Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) that the expanded deployment would cost around $1.4 billion through 2028.

The broader mission has since been extended through Inauguration Day 2029. Over the summer, troop levels reached nearly 5,000, with personnel drawn from 20 states and Puerto Rico.

The deployment hasn’t exactly been a public relations triumph, either. An internal Guard analysis, accidentally emailed to The Washington Post in September 2025, found that just 2 percent of social media posts about the deployment were positive. The analysis warned the mission risked driving a “wedge between citizens and the military.”

The latest escalation comes as Washington prepares for a new mayor—and a potential showdown with the White House.

In January, Janeese Lewis George will replace Muriel Bowser as mayor. Trump has praised Bowser for cooperating with the federal surge; in June, he said he “wouldn’t like it” if Lewis George won and threatened to “take back Washington.”

The Daily Beast has contacted the White House and the Pentagon for comment.

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