D.C.'s new dismay

D.C.-area lawmakers are infuriated by President Trump's decision to temporarily take control of the district's police force.

• Trump "continues to search for distractions and provocations to divert attention from his outrageous refusal to release the Epstein files," Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) told us today.

Why it matters: Trump is the first president to use the D.C. Home Rule Act for a temporary law enforcement takeover.

• Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) called it a "historic assault on D.C. home rule."
• Rep. Glen Ivey (D-Md.) told us: "Suspicious minds might wonder if this is just kind of a first step towards a move on other parts of the government in D.C."
• Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said: "Decisions about our nation's capital should be made in close consultation with local leaders ... Instead, the president again chose to bypass those conversations."

Zoom in: Trump said he'll federalize the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department and send the National Guard into the city in a major escalation of his campaign to tackle crime.

• Trump has spent days threatening such a takeover after a DOGE staffer was allegedly beaten during an early-morning carjacking.
• At a White House press conference, he called the move a "historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor, and worse."

Share this story.

— Andrew Solender