On August 19, 2025, the streets of Washington, D.C. took on a distinctly different tone. Hundreds of National Guard troops, clad in full uniform, began patrolling the nation's capital following President Trump's order to assert federal control over the city's police force. This move, which many experts have called an extraordinary departure from American governing norms, has set off a wave of political, legal, and historical debate stretching far beyond D.C.'s borders.
Virginia and Maryland—D.C.'s immediate neighbors—have found themselves at the center of the controversy. Their governors, Glenn Youngkin of Virginia and Wes Moore of Maryland, have responded in starkly different ways, highlighting deep partisan divides over federal intervention in local policing and the use of military force on American soil.
Virginia's Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin has thrown his support behind the Trump administration's crackdown. In a statement to WUSA9, Youngkin described D.C. as "extremely dangerous" and said, "This will make D.C. safer." He likened the federal takeover to a multi-agency Homeland Security Task Force he launched in Virginia earlier this year, which also involves the state's National Guard and agents from at least seven federal agencies. "The state's National Guard is being used as part of that regional task force," Youngkin explained, emphasizing the need to fight organized crime and conduct immigration enforcement. According to Axios, Youngkin praised Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency now working with D.C. police under the city's takeover, calling his previous work in Virginia "amazing."
Maryland's Democratic Governor Wes Moore, on the other hand, has been openly critical of Trump's actions. Moore told CNN that he only deploys Maryland's National Guard "in cases of emergency and true crises," expressing heartbreak for Guard members asked to take on what he sees as a political mission. Moore dismissed the federal intervention as a "performative stunt," adding in a video posted to X, "President Trump doesn't know what he's talking about. I don't believe in performative stunts." Moore, an Army veteran, further jabbed at Trump during an interview with journalist April Ryan: "I've actually worn the uniform of this country. I do not need, and will not accept, any type of lecture from someone who the only uniform they have worn is a Brooks Brothers suit."
The tension between the two governors mirrors the broader national debate about the appropriate role of the military in domestic law enforcement. According to NPR, the National Guard is unique among military branches because its soldiers answer to both state and federal governments. However, since D.C. is not a state, its National Guard answers directly to the president, not to a governor. This distinction has allowed President Trump to deploy the Guard to D.C. without local approval, a move that experts say is highly unusual outside of true emergencies or civil rights enforcement.
Historically, the National Guard has been called to action during times of crisis—catastrophic weather events, riots, or large-scale protests. During the 2020 racial justice demonstrations following the murder of George Floyd, for example, more than 5,000 National Guard troops patrolled D.C. at Trump's orders, as reported by NPR. But the current deployment stands apart: Trump has federalized the Guard as a blanket response to crime in D.C., which he has repeatedly described as "out of control," despite a significant drop in the city's crime rate. This, say legal scholars, is a sharp break from precedent.
Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center's Liberty and National Security Program, told NPR, "The people who drafted the Constitution were extraordinarily suspicious of military power, so much so that there were vigorous debates at the Constitutional Convention about whether even to allow for the creation of a national standing army or whether the new country should instead rely exclusively on the state militias." Nunn explained that, for most of U.S. history, presidents have deferred to governors when deciding whether to deploy the National Guard. The exceptions—such as Eisenhower's intervention in Arkansas in 1957 to enforce school integration, or Johnson's in Alabama during the Selma marches—were tied to protecting civil rights, not general law enforcement.
Until this year, it had been six decades since a president overrode a governor to federalize the Guard for domestic deployment. But in June 2025, Trump broke that tradition by federalizing thousands of California National Guard troops in Los Angeles to respond to protests against immigration raids. Nunn called this "virtually never" occurring in modern American history, noting that the last comparable event was the federal response to the Pullman strike in 1894. Trump's subsequent decision to activate the Guard in D.C. to address crime, Nunn argued, "challenges the principle" that military force should be a last resort in civilian law enforcement.
Experts have also raised concerns about the effectiveness and risks of using the National Guard for routine policing. Mark Cancian, a retired Marine Corps colonel and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told NPR, "Although they have the mission of domestic disturbances, they don't get a lot of training in it, and they certainly don't get the extensive training and the nuances that, for example, the police get." He warned that the military's mindset is fundamentally different from that of law enforcement, with troops trained to see threats rather than citizens.
The dangers of this approach have been tragically illustrated in the past. In 1970, National Guardsmen fired into a crowd of student protesters at Kent State University in Ohio, killing four and wounding nine others. The incident remains a somber reminder of what can go wrong when military personnel are tasked with policing civilians. Cancian cautioned, "The police look at the people in front of them as citizens who may be misbehaving, but they're citizens. The military looks at people out there and sees threats that need to be neutralized, and that can lead to bad things."
Despite these concerns, the Trump administration has signaled that the federal takeover model could be expanded to other cities. Trump himself hinted at using the approach in Baltimore, raising the specter of further federal interventions in local law enforcement. FBI Director Kash Patel described the federal-local partnership used in Youngkin's Virginia task force as a model for the D.C. takeover, suggesting that this blend of military and law enforcement resources could become more common.
Meanwhile, the political fallout continues. President Trump, responding to Moore's criticism, declared during a press conference that Moore has "no chance" at becoming president. Moore, undeterred, has continued to voice his opposition, insisting that the use of the National Guard should remain a tool for genuine emergencies, not political theater.
As National Guard troops continue their patrols in D.C., the debate over the balance between security and civil liberties intensifies. The events unfolding in the capital are not just about one city—they are a test of American traditions, federal power, and the principles that have long defined the nation's approach to law enforcement and military authority.
