“Before the tents, squalor, filth, and Crime, it was the most beautiful Capital in the World. It will soon be that again,” Trump posted on Truth Social.

Framing D.C. as a “sanctuary for illegal alien criminals” plagued by “lawlessness,” Trump claimed the city’s homicide rates outpace Bogotá and Mexico City, despite official data showing violent crime at a 30-year low. He invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act to justify the federal intervention, with 800 National Guard troops now patrolling the streets, per Politico.

Perhaps most controversially, Trump declared that officers can “do whatever the hell they want” when met with hostility.

“That’s the only language they understand,” he told reporters. “You spit, and we hit, and they can hit real hard.”