Op-ed by Summer Lane | Photo: Alamy
In late January, a former Trump administration official, Mike Gill, was shot in Washington, D.C., during a reported carjacking. He later passed away, drawing attention to the rising crime and degradation of the nation’s once sparkling capital.
Per Politico, Gill formerly served as the chief of staff of the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, and he was only 56 at the time of his death. Sadly, this is just one example in a list of violent crimes in Washington.
Washington, D.C., has taken a long, painful fall from grace over the past few years, with residents suffering from the scourge of rising crime as establishment politicians scurry to and from work every day at the U.S. Capitol, the White House, and beyond.
Mike Gill’s tragic death is a symptom of the devastating rot that has taken root in D.C., spurring the growth of homicides, carjackings, shootings, and out-of-control homelessness.
Amid the failing state of D.C., President Donald Trump has been quick to point out over the past several months that the nation’s capital is in dire need of rescuing.
“Washington (D.C.) has become a dirty, crime ridden death trap, that must be taken over and properly run by the Federal Government,” he wrote on Truth Social in October 2023.
President Donald Trump is poised to clean up Washington, D.C., in more ways than one in a prospective 2025 administration.
Trump’s plan to federalize D.C.
Trump has spoken often about the catastrophic decline of Washington, D.C., even eviscerating it as a “s***house” in humorous remarks in Derry, New Hampshire, last year. “We want it clean, we want it beautiful, we want it SAFE,” he said.
To accomplish this task, the 45th president has proposed moving the city under federal control to deal with violent crime, filth, and skyrocketing vagrancy. He has previously stated, “Every day, people are being shot, they’re being killed, they’re being badly hurt – in good neighborhoods.”
Why D.C. has gotten so out of control
Local D.C. leadership has been left-leaning at best and radical at worst. Last year, then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., sent legislation to Joe Biden’s desk that was aimed at repealing the city’s abhorrent criminal code law.
Per RSBN, the 2022 crime bill reduced mandatory maximum punishments for crimes like carjacking, sexual assault, and even murder. NBC also reported that in 2023, 56 percent of those who were arrested in D.C. were not prosecuted.
Now, in 2024, D.C. has recently moved forward with a new omnibus crime bill to attempt to address the out-of-control violence. According to Axios, the bill is proposing more gun laws, upping penalties for stealing, and the creation of supposed “‘drug free zones’ where people gathering to sell, buy, or use drugs could be arrested.”
It seems as if nothing the city has introduced has yet done the trick as far as keeping crime down to a manageable level.
President Trump recently put it this way: “People are coming here and they’re getting shot. They come here for an evening – ‘I want to see the Lincoln Memorial. I want to see something. I want to see something so beautiful. I want to look at the Capitol building. I want to look at the White House.’ And they go home in a casket.”
How federalizing D.C. might play out
Simply put, federalizing Washington, D.C., would take control away from players like D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) and give it to the president.
In response to the news of Mike Gill’s alleged murder in Washington, Trump wrote that he was a “Wonderful and brilliant” man who was “SPECIAL PERSON.” He added, “The Federal Government must take over D.C. God bless Michael and his family!”
Interestingly, D.C. is already largely under federal control, in part because of the Home Rule Act of 1973. Per this rule, Congress must “review all legislation passed by the Council before it can become law and retains authority over the District’s budget.” The act also mandated the power of the U.S. president to appoint the D.C. district judges, per the D.C. Council.
In 2020, amid the violent protests and tumult spearheaded by radical groups like Black Lives Matter, President Trump toyed with the concept of federalizing the D.C. police force to take care of the problem. Ultimately, this did not end up happening.
Trump could send in the National Guard to secure D.C. in 2025 or federalize the police force – or both.
Via NBC News, Trump said in Las Vegas recently, “We’re going to federalize it. We’re gonna have the toughest law enforcement in the country. We’re not going to have any more crime and it’s going to look beautiful.”
