Democrats demand a state of state of DC after Trump federalizes local police

President Donald Trump’s grip on Washington DC police continued in a second week, stimulating Democrats to rekindle requests for the district to become a state.

Last week, Trump invoked a provision of the law on the rules of the domicile, the law which gives the national capital a certain autonomy of the congress, to effectively take over the Metropolitan Police Department in order to repress the crime.

Since then, many federal organizations for applying the law and the National Guard, helped by reserves of states across the country, have patrolled the streets of DC, and the White House has praised a rapid decrease in crime and dozens of arrests.

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President Donald Trump listens to a question of a journalist on August 11, 2025 in Washington, DC (AP / Mark Schiefelbein)

Because it is not a state, Washington has no representation of voting in the congress and, despite a mayor and a municipal council, is supervised by the congress.

But some legislators consider the decision as another attempt by the president to overexploit his powers and to argue that this is another reason why DC should be a state – a notion that Trump last week has reprimanded as “ridiculous”.

“If DC was a state, the president could not do what he does outside the federal enclave,” said senator Paul Strauss, the district ghost senator at Fox News Digital.

Strauss, DD.C., has long put pressure for the state in its role as a ghost senator, a non -voting elected member of the Washington DC Senate. He said that the idea behind the state is to give the agency of DC residents and self -determination, which he thought that repression ignored.

“It would be one thing if we had a criminal emergency here, but we don’t do it,” said Strauss. “The violent crime in particular fell at 30 years old. This is not what is happening here. He uses these national guards and women as a stuntman, and it’s bad.”

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Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton speaks at a press conference outside the American Capitol on March 10, 2024 in Washington, DC (Kayla Bartkowski / Getty Images)

His colleague in the House, DC not voting del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, also a democrat, accepted.

“The president’s abuses are evidence of the Urgent state need for DC so that more than 700,000 DC residents can finally have the rights and complementary privileges to other Americans, including the control of their own local resources and policies,” she said in a statement to Fox News Digital.

The spokesperson for the White House, Taylor Rogers, at the end that the violent crimes in the district “were uncontrollable – and the Democrats lie to the American people when they claim that there is no crime in the capital of our country”.

“If they needed anecdotal evidence, they could ask their own Democratic colleague at the time he was diverted outside his DC apartment by three armed criminals,” she told Fox News Digital. “The case of Trump’s disturbance syndrome democrats is so serious, they don’t even support President Trump’s common sense policies to withdraw dangerous criminals from the capital of our country.”

Strauss and Norton were joined by neighboring Virginia and Maryland legislators, the states that Washington, DC, was sculpted more than two centuries ago, which argued that Trump’s decision to federalize local police shone “a light on the urgent need of the state of DC”.

Senator Tim KaineD-VA., Told Fox News Digital that police takeover was “an excellent example of the reason why DC deserves the same rights as states”.

Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-MD., Accused that “the Republicans in the Congress were too ready to play political games with the funding for public security and critical services while supporting an authoritarian exaggeration by an without right president”.

Van Hollen announced plans earlier this month to reintroduce a bill alongside Norton to grant the state to DC

Van Hollen, Norton and rep. Jamie RaskinD-MD., Introduced a joint resolution in the house to also interrupt the takeover of the DC police by Trump.

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Senator Chris Van Hollen, D-MD., Expresses himself at a press conference when he arrived after a meeting with Kilmar Abrego Garcia in Salvador, at Washington International Airport Dulles, Chantilly, Virginia, April 18, 2025. (AP photo / Jose Luis Magana)

Raskin told Fox News Digital in a statement that the residents of the district are “the only people who live in a capital on earth who are deprived of their rights in their national legislature”.

“The inhabitants of Washington have petitioned for the state and should be admitted as a state rather than treated as a population colonized by Maga,” he said.

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But the reality to transform DC into a state, at least while the Republicans have a trifecta in Washington, is at best thin.

“I think there is probably no way to do so while the Republicans control the three branches of the government,” said Strauss. “Because they have shown that they are more interested in the partisan impact of control of the legislative branch and are not really interested in the principle of self -determination for Washington, DC, residents.”