WASHINGTON — A column of National Guard Humvees rolled down a quiet stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue Friday morning, scanning rooftops for snipers, alleyways for gangs, and storefronts for the kind of generalized urban menace that exists primarily in the president’s motorcade route to Joint Base Andrews.
Trump activated 800 Guardsmen Thursday to combat what he described as “the worst crime in American history, possibly world history,” in a city where homicides are down 26 percent, carjackings are down 53 percent, and the most dangerous thing on the National Mall this week is the line for the Air and Space Museum.
“We’re here to do whatever the mission requires,” said Staff Sgt. Kyle Mendoza, who spent the morning escorting a German tour group across Lafayette Square and helping a woman from Akron find her Honda Civic. “I was told to expect a war zone. I was issued two MREs and a packet of Gold Bond.”
The executive order tasks the Guard with patrolling neighborhoods, deterring violent offenders, and “looking out generally for thugs,” a category the order leaves entirely undefined. A supplementary DHS memo encourages soldiers to use “their gut,” “their instincts,” and, where possible, “the part of the brain that tells you something’s off about a guy.”
By Friday afternoon, the Guard had detained no one, recovered no weapons, and broken up no riots. They had, however, given seven sets of directions to the Spy Museum, posed for forty-three photographs with visiting Cub Scouts, and helped a ten-year-old retrieve a kite from a tree outside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser, who learned of the deployment from a reporter who learned of it from Truth Social, declined to share the city’s crime data with federal authorities, on the grounds that the federal authorities had already decided what the data said.
“They keep asking us where the crime is,” said Officer Renee Patterson of the Metropolitan Police, watching a Guardsman attempt to inspect a cab he had also been trying to hail. “I told them it’s down. They said that’s exactly what someone covering up the crime would say.”
At a Friday briefing, the White House clarified that the deployment was not in response to any specific incident but rather a “general posture of strength,” to be maintained until crime in the District reaches whatever number the president has privately decided it should be. Asked what that number was, the press secretary said it would be known when it was reached.
The Pentagon estimates the operation will cost taxpayers $14 million a month, a figure officials defended by noting that, in a pinch, the Guardsmen are also available to help carry the president’s bags.