Axios reports:

President Trump temporarily placed Washington, D.C., police under federal control on Monday and implied that he would intervene in other cities despite crime rates falling.

Why it matters: Trump’s D.C. takeover is a major escalation of federal control not frequently seen in America, and further illustrates his willingness to target Democratic-led cities while testing the limits of presidential authority.

• While announcing the D.C. crackdown, Trump also named Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, New York and Chicago as cities that are “bad, very bad,” without offering specific reasons why.
• He said D.C.’s crime rates and its homeless population are why he’s intervening in the nation’s Capital despite the Justice Department in January declaring violent crimes are at a 30-year low.
• The president for years has accused immigrants of committing crimes, despite evidence to the contrary.

Reality check: Murder in America was down 15% last year, according to data the FBI compiles from local jurisdictions.

• The overall crime rate was down 5% nationally, and robberies were down 9%.
• Data from 68 law enforcement agencies showed a 19% drop in homicides in most major U.S. cities in the first six months of 2025, according to the Major Cities Chiefs Association.
• Trump’s decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles to counter protests against immigration arrests provoked legal challenges from Gov. Gavin Newsom, who opposed the move.

What he’s saying: “We’re not gonna lose our cities over this,” Trump said Monday morning. “And this will go further.” [Continue reading…]

As Michael Schaffer indicates, Trump himself is the driving force of Washington DC’s reputational crisis:

Elliott Ferguson, the man who markets Washington to conventioneers, usually spends his days talking up the city’s tourist infrastructure, meeting facilities and business possibilities. But in a recent conversation, he led with a much more troubling data point: The capital has lost 41 upcoming conferences and corporate gatherings since the dawn of Donald Trump’s second term.

“They are making decisions not to come because of new concerns, particularly from international visitors,” Ferguson, the CEO of Destination D.C., said. “It’s budgets, it’s safety, it’s concern about even being able to gain access to the United States.”

It all adds up to a giant flashing danger sign for a region already reeling from sweeping federal job cuts — which may now happen even faster thanks to last week’s Supreme Court decision to allow Trump’s mass firings to proceed.

But it also says a lot about changing perceptions of the United States and its capital, a city whose pitch to visitors never used to change much based on who was president. What had been a place of monuments and history is now increasingly viewed from afar as a place where your event could be suddenly canceled by authorities or your keynote speaker could be detained at the airport.

Ferguson — whose organization is still trying to change the minds of groups that have dropped D.C. events — declined to name any names, but said that planners for seven of the canceled meetings had already chosen Washington as their destination before they reversed course; another 34 had taken the capital out of contention. He attributed the drop to two trends: First and foremost, international visitors repelled by America’s unwelcoming reputation, but also domestic ones turned off by the bad vibes around politics and government. [Continue reading…]