Donald Trump has seized control of Washington DC’s police force and ordered the national guard to the capital in an extraordinary move that bypassed the city’s elected leaders.
The US president claimed his actions were needed to “rescue” Washington from a wave of lawlessness – but experts say his portrayal of crime there is rooted in false and misleading claims.
“We’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said, adding he would also be “getting rid of the slums”.
Trump warned that other major US cities with Democratic leadership could be next, including Chicago. “Hopefully LA is watching.”
As he spoke, protesters against the move gathered outside the White House, while DC officials called his actions illegal.
Here are the day’s key US politics stories at a glance.
Trump seizes control of Washington DC police
Donald Trump has ordered the national guard to Washington DC and seized control of the city’s police force, describing a “lawless” city in ways that are sharply at odds with official crime statistics.
The US president’s move was swiftly condemned as a “disgusting, dangerous and derogatory” assault on the political independence of a racially diverse city. The federal takeover is expected to be in effect for 30 days, the White House confirmed to the Guardian.
Trump announces 90-day pause on China tariffs
The president has again delayed implementing sweeping tariffs on China, announcing another 90-day pause just hours before the last agreement between the world’s two largest economies was due to expire.
Trump and Putin to discuss ‘land swapping’ at Ukraine war summit
Donald Trump has confirmed that he and Vladimir Putin will discuss “land swapping” when they meet on Friday in Alaska for a high-stakes summit on the Russia-Ukraine war. But the US president expressed frustration with Volodymyr Zelenskyy for putting conditions on such a potential agreement.
Trump tips Heritage Foundation economist as labor statistics chief
The president has announced he is nominating EJ Antoni, the chief economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, as the next commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The nomination comes after Trump fired the BLS commissioner, Erika McEntarfer, earlier this month following the release of a weak jobs report that he claimed, without evidence, had been “rigged”.
Gavin Newsom urges Trump to abandon Texas redistricting effort
Texas Democrats once again stymied a Republican effort to redraw the state’s congressional maps at Donald Trump’s behest and California governor Gavin Newsom urged the president to stand down and defuse the redistricting arms race that has spread across the country. Enough Texas Democrats remained outside of the state on Monday to deny the Republican-led state legislature the quorum necessary to proceed with Trump’s desired congressional map.
Veterans agency lost thousands of ‘core’ medical staff under Trump
The Department of Veterans Affairs has lost thousands of healthcare professionals deemed “core” to the system’s ability to function and “without which mission-critical work cannot be completed”, agency records show. The number of medical staff on hand to treat veterans has fallen every month since Trump took office.
What else happened today:
The Trump administration’s immigration policies are affecting workers and driving, in part, a decline in tourism to Las Vegas, according to workers and the largest labor union in the state of Nevada.
A federal judge has formally rejected the US justice department’s request to release transcripts of pre-indictment, grand jury interviews with witnesses in the case of Ghislaine Maxwell, the convicted sex trafficker and associate of Jeffrey Epstein.
Catching up? Here’s what happened on 10 August 2025.
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