Donald Trump vowed a hardline crackdown on homeless people living in Washington, D.C., after seeing people camping out on the route to his golf course, according to a report.
The president demanded that homeless people leave the capital “immediately” in a Sunday post on Truth Social while sharing images of tents and homeless people in the capital. The images Trump shared were apparently taken from his motorcade while driving from the White House to Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Virginia, according to The Guardian.
One of the images shared by Trump showed several tents pitched on grass along a highway on-ramp around one mile away from the White House. Another appears to show a person sleeping in front of the American Institute of Pharmacy Building on Constitution Avenue.
Speaking to Politico’s Playbook, a White House official said Trump’s clampdown on D.C. stems from the president’s unhappiness at the overall cleanliness of the city.
“What it really is is the president has been driving around D.C. and has seen the filth and has seen the squalor himself, and he wants to make it more beautiful and more safe,” the official said.
Trump also wants to reduce violent crime in the nation’s capital—and has arranged a press conference for Monday morning to outline his plans.
The U.S. military is preparing the National Guard for deployment under the plans to target crime in D.C., according to the New York Times. This is despite official federal figures showing violent crime in D.C. fell 35 percent from 2023 to 2024, and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years, according to figures from the Metropolitan Police Department.
Hundreds of troops could be sent to D.C., although it is unclear precisely how many will be activated or what they will do once they are there, unnamed officials told Reuters.
Some of the potential tasks include protecting federal agents or even doing administrative work to free up law enforcement to carry out the jobs Trump wants them to do, one official added.
“It has become one of the most dangerous cities anywhere in the World. It will soon be one of the safest!!!” Trump added in a follow-up Truth Social post announcing Monday’s press conference, which he claims will “essentially, stop violent crime in Washington, D.C.”
Trump has already ordered federal law enforcement to ramp up patrols in the D.C., with nearly 450 federal officers deployed on Saturday, a White House official told NPR.
Around 120 FBI agents were also deployed for overnight shifts to assist D.C. police tackling crimes such as carjackings, reported The Washington Post.
Trump’s targeting of D.C. comes after he expressed his dismay over an assault on Edward “Big Balls” Coristine, a 19-year-old former employee of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) who was attacked in an alleged carjacking in D.C. Two minors from Maryland were arrested over the incident.
In response, Trump threatened to “take federal control of the city and run this city how it should be run,” and called for juvenile suspects to be tried as adults.
A number of Trump supporters have also expressed hope on social media that “Big Balls” may even turn up to Trump’s Monday press conference to speak out against violent crime in D.C.
Trump previously sent National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles amid the anti-ICE raid protests which were taking place.
Unlike in all U.S. states, the president directly controls the National Guard in the District of Columbia.
Speaking to MSNBC on Sunday, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser pushed back on the president’s attacks on D.C., saying it is “not experiencing a crime spike.”
She also called deploying Guard troops, who are not law enforcement, “not the most efficient use” of military resources.
“Washington, D.C. will be LIBERATED today!” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post on Monday morning. “Crime, Savagery, Filth, and Scum will DISAPPEAR. I will, MAKE OUR CAPITAL GREAT AGAIN! The days of ruthlessly killing, or hurting, innocent people, are OVER! I quickly fixed the Border (ZERO ILLEGALS in last 3 months!), D.C. is next!!!”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Daily Beast.
The post Trump Plots Crackdown After Seeing Homeless People on the Road to His Golf Course appeared first on The Daily Beast.
