During a press conference on Monday, President Donald Trump noted how Washington, D.C. has a higher homicide rate than the capital cities of many other nations.

That fact led the president to intervene by deploying National Guard troops and taking control of the Metropolitan Police Department.

Trump: "We're going to take our capital back"

"This is Liberation Day in D.C., and we’re going to take our capital back. We’re taking it back," Breitbart quoted Trump as saying at the White House.

"Under the authorities vested in me as the President of the United States, I’m officially invoking section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act," he continued, referring to a piece of legislation which was passed in 1973.

What's more, Trump hailed National Guard personnel as being "very tough" and pledged that they will do their job "properly."

"I understand a lot of you tend to be on the liberal side, but … you don’t want to get mugged and raped and shot and killed," he told the reporters in attendance.

"You want to be able to leave your apartment or your house where you live and feel safe and go into a store to buy a newspaper or buy something, and you don’t have that now," Trump stressed.

National Guard troops will be "flowing into the streets"

Fox News reported that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was also in attendance, and he said the journalists would see troops "flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week."

White House handouts passed out to reporters ahead of President Trump’s news conference on DC crime. pic.twitter.com/ai5j3v262B

— Philip Melanchthon Wegmann (@PhilipWegmann) August 11, 2025

Like Trump, the secretary of Defense also characterized National Guard soldiers as being "strong" and "tough" while promising that "they will stand with their law enforcement partners."

In addition to crime, this past weekend also saw the president speak out on the crisis of homelessness which has plagued the nation's capital.

Trump signs executive order on homelessness

According to the BBC, Trump put up a Truth Social post on Sunday in which he wrote, "The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital."

That message came roughly two weeks after the president signed an executive order titled "Ending Crime and Disorder on America's Streets."

It instructed the Department of Justice to help states overcome legal barriers preventing the civil commitment of individuals who "pose risks to themselves or the public" and "cannot care for themselves."