When I walk my toddler home from daycare every evening, it is safe. That's here in Washington, D.C., where I have lived since I moved to work on government accountability 15 years ago.
For perhaps the next 30 days, or longer, District of Columbia residents will be policed by federalized civilian and military officers, per an executive order and presidential memorandum this morning. The executive order directs the police to be federalized to protect "national monuments" (which are in the safest parts of D.C. thanks to the existing park police) and other federal properties, but the memorandum directs the DC National Guard to address crime throughout the capital.
There is no crime emergency here. I live here. I have seen things get better, not worse, with my own eyes. Violent crime is the lowest it has been in 30 years. Overall crime is down this year already. According to 2019 data, crime is worse in Houston and Indianapolis than here in D.C. Like all places, we have crime. I have seen that too. But not more than most.
D.C. is not just the capital district. It is one of the largest cities in the country. It's a great city. I love living here. 700,000 people live in D.C. — that's more than two whole states, Vermont and Wyoming. District residents paid $45 billion in federal taxes in 2024 — that's more than North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, and Vermont combined (and more than 21 other states individually).
How many votes do we have in Congress? None. We don't have any say in the federal laws that bind us. But that's not all. Arrests are already prosecuted by federal lawyers, not lawyers that work for the elected DC Attorney General. They enforce local laws that the District's Council has been blocked by Congress from updating.
There is a lot of taxation here and not a lot of representation.
Instead, politicians from far away cities with crime worse than ours use us for their own gain.
It's not enough that federal police officers already police many of the parks here (many of which are national parks), the area around the Capitol (which has its own federal police force), and White House grounds (which has the Secret Service). Now it might be our neighborhoods too. It will not make our communities safer, and it defies the American spirit of a government accountable to its people.
Joshua Tauberer is the founder of GovTrack.us and created the site initially as a hobby in 2004.
Don’t Federalize and Militarize DC’s Local Police was originally published by GovTrack.us and is republished with permission.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a“ Steel Across America” event ahead of the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11th attacks on the Ellipse near the White House on Sept. 8, 2026 in Washington, D.C. President Trump welcomed 9/ 11 first responders to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation’ s“ Steel Across America” event featuring a 16,900- pound, 21- foot steel beam recovered.
For Trump, even 9/11 is an opportunity
There was a reason organizers of the 9/11 ceremony in Manhattan told President Trump he could not speak at this year’s memorial service.
A good one, it turns out.
Because in a speech he gave on Tuesday in Washington, he did exactly what they were presumably worried about — he made it about himself.
According to The New York Times, Trump had wanted a speaking role at the service, but the National Sept. 11 Memorial and Museum, which oversees the site, said no, as they’ve maintained for the past decade-plus that the venue and event should be nonpartisan.
Trump has long used awful tragedies to either puff himself up, trash political opponents, or sell lies to the American people.
He blamed a deadly plane crash at Washington National Airport last year on diversity, equity and inclusion policies. He blamed Puerto Ricans for the devastation they endured after Hurricane Maria in 2017. He reportedly considered withholding disaster relief after the California wildfires based on the way affected regions voted. In an interview on Fox News meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of D-Day in Normandy, he used the occasion to slam former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi…with graves of the dead behind him.
And now, as we approach the 25th anniversary of what many New Yorkers consider the darkest day in modern history, Trump has done it again.
He told a rambling, nonsensical story — one he’s told before — about going to Ground Zero just after terrorists flew two commercial jets into the twin towers. In the story, which no one has been able to verify, despite multiple attempts, he says firefighters had to carry him out of One Liberty Plaza, also known as the U.S. Steel Building, because they thought it was about to collapse.
As CNN fact checker Daniel Dale notes, there’s no evidence Trump went into this building, especially at a time when NYPD and NYFD had locked down the area. There’s no evidence that building was collapsing — in fact, it was deemed structurally sound and reopened within two months of the attacks. There’s no evidence he was carried out of it by firefighters.
But the lie isn’t even the worst part. Pretend it was all true — why would the leader of our country, and a New Yorker, decide to make that tragic day about himself?
Because that’s who Donald Trump is. He’s a malignant narcissist.
He’s also, incidentally, a terrible and ineffectual president, who’s made ill-fated decisions that he has to keep defending, and there’s nothing he won’t do to make himself look and feel better.
Within the first two minutes of his speech, he was cravenly using 9/11 to justify and promote his dumb war in Iran — two events separated by 25 years and 6,000 miles.
“And I will tell you, we’re right now fighting because we have a certain nation that wanted a nuclear weapon, they were very close to getting it, and now they have no chance at getting it. They will never have a nuclear weapon. Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And they’ve been punished greatly. As you know, we’ve really taken it to them.”
As a New Yorker who lived through 9/11, still one of the worst days of my life, I’m utterly sickened by Trump’s crass, political, and self-promotional framing of that awful day.
And I’m relieved he won’t be given a platform to do it again on Friday’s anniversary in lower Manhattan.
Because for Trump, everything is his for the taking, and absolutely nothing is sacred.
S.E. Cupp is the host of "S.E. Cupp Unfiltered" on CNN.