Trump Admin to Escalate D.C. Military Takeover After Two National Guard Members Shot

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Trump administration would send hundreds of additional National Guard soldiers to the nation’s capital after two soldiers were shot in the city Wednesday.

The announced escalation to Trump’s military occupation in Washington, D.C., comes less than a week after a federal court found that the president’s decision to deploy over 2,000 Guard members there was likely unlawful.

“President Trump has asked me, and I will ask the secretary of the Army to the National Guard, to add 500 additional troops, National Guardsman, to Washington, D.C.,” Hegseth said after the shooting Wednesday. 

“We will never back down. We will secure our capital. We will secure our cities,” he added. “If criminals want to conduct things like this — violence against America’s best — we will never back down.”

West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey (R) said the two Guard members were part of the West Virginia National Guard. He initially said the troops had died but later walked back that statement, saying his office received “conflicting reports” about their condition.

The shooting occurred just blocks away from the White House. In addition to the Guard soldiers, a suspect, who is now in custody, was also injured.

Morrisey was among several other Republican governors who sent hundreds of their state Guard members to D.C. after Trump in August declared a “crime emergency” in the district. Trump made the announcement at a time when data from the Justice Department showed that crime in the district had been falling.

Earlier this month, a West Virginia judge dismissed a lawsuit alleging that Morrisey’s decision to send Guard troops to D.C. violated state law.

The troops deployed to D.C. are not authorized to conduct certain law enforcement actions, like searches and arrests, but are armed with service pistols and are able temporarily detain people to prevent imminent harm.

In September, D.C. claimed in a lawsuit that Trump’s deployment violated federal law because the troops were conducting “core” law enforcement duties, including “presence patrols” and “community patrols.”

A federal judge last week found that the Trump administration likely violated the law by deploying troops to D.C. for “non-military, crime-deterrence missions in the absence of a request from the city’s civil authorities.”

The deployment, the judge also found, inflicted serious harm on the district’s right to govern itself.

The judge stayed the ruling until Dec. 11 to allow the Trump administration to appeal to the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals, which it did last night.

Federal law generally prohibits soldiers from participating in civilian law enforcement. However, Trump has attempted to circumvent those laws through his deployments in D.C. and Los Angeles this year.

The president has also attempted to send troops to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, though courts have blocked those deployments.