National Guard troops will soon be carrying military weapons in Washington, DC, where President Donald Trump ordered their deployment as part of a crackdown on crime, a US defense official said Friday.
Trump claims Washington was a "crime-infested rat hole" before he sent troops onto its streets last week, and says Chicago and New York -- two more major Democrat-led cities -- are set to receive similar treatment.
"At the direction of the secretary of defense, JTF-DC members supporting the mission to lower the crime rate in our nation's capital will soon be on mission with their service-issued weapons," the defense official said on condition of anonymity, referring to the Joint Task Force-DC.
"The Interim Commanding General of the DC National Guard retains the authority to make any necessary force posture adjustments in coordination with the DC Metropolitan Police and Federal law enforcement partners," the official added.
The US Army had previously said as troops began to arrive that "weapons are available if needed but will remain in the armory."
There are now more than 1,900 National Guard troops in Washington, both from the city as well as the Republican-led states of West Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee, which have also sent forces.
On Friday, Trump indicated that Chicago and New York are set to receive similar treatment.
"We're going to make our cities very, very safe," Trump told reporters at the White House. "I think Chicago will be our next and then we'll help with New York."
Republican politicians -- led by Trump -- have claimed that the overwhelmingly Democratic US capital is overrun by crime, plagued by homelessness and financially mismanaged.
Data from Washington police, however, showed significant drops in violent crime between 2023 and 2024, though that was coming off a post-pandemic surge.
A Justice Department statement from January said that based on that data, "total violent crime for 2024 in the District of Columbia is down 35 percent from 2023 and is the lowest it has been in over 30 years."
But Trump has accused Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser of "giving false and highly inaccurate crime figures," threatening "bad things" including a total federal takeover of the city if she does not stop doing so.
