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Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & NatSec newsletter

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Defense &
National Security

Defense &
National Security

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The Big Story

What to know about Trump’s DC National Guard deployment

President Trump on Monday announced plans to deploy some 800 members of the Washington, D.C. National Guard to the nation’s capital.

Formally declaring a public safety emergency, Trump claimed the deployment is part of a city-wide effort to combat violent crime such as homicides, robberies and burglaries – even as such crimes have sharply fallen over the past two years.

“This is liberation day in D.C. and we’re going to take our capital back,” Trump said at a wide-ranging White House press conference in which he also declared he was putting the city’s police department under federal control.

“I’m deploying the National Guard to help reestablish law, order, and public safety in Washington, D.C., and they’re going to be allowed to do their job properly.”

The move quickly drew the outrage of local and Congressional Democrat lawmakers, who decried the move as unnecessary, “unsettling” and a “brazen power grab,” even as those in the GOP applauded it.

In an official memo to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, Trump said he was invoking Constitutional law to deploy the hundreds of Guardsmen across the city, citing recent high-profile crimes in the city.

The memo’s text directs Hegseth to mobilize the D.C. National Guard and “in such numbers as he deems necessary, to address the epidemic of crime in our Nation’s capital.”

The order’s wording also allows for possible additional Guard deployments from other states, as Hegseth is told to coordinate with state governors for any extra Guardsmen “as he deems necessary and appropriate, to augment this mission.”

“There are other units we are prepared to bring in, other National Guard units, other specialized units,” Hegseth said during the press conference.

The document does not set a timeline for the Guard’s deployment, only noting that their mobilization and duration of duty “shall remain in effect until [Trump determines] that conditions of law and order have been restored in the District of Columbia.”

The troops will be in a Title 32 status, meaning they are under local authority but are federally funded and not subject to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits U.S. service members from taking part in law enforcement activities.

In a statement released later Monday, Army officials said the D.C. National Guard soldiers will be activated to help with administrative and logistical tasks in addition to providing “physical presence in support of law enforcement.”

Even as hundreds of Guard troops will be in the city, only between 100 and 200 soldiers will be supporting law enforcement at any given time.

Operational details, including where the soldiers will physically be assigned and what their command-and-control will be, have not been released and are likely still being worked out.

When they might be seen around the city is also unclear, though Hegseth said during the press conference that Guardsmen will be “flowing into the streets of Washington in the coming week.”

Read the full report at TheHill.com.

Welcome to The Hill’s Defense & National Security newsletter, I’m Ellen Mitchell — your guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond.

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Essential Reads

How policy will affect defense and national security now and in
the future:

Trump and California: Court to decide legality of National Guard deployment to Los Angeles

A three-day bench trial will begin Monday over whether President Trump’s National Guard deployment to Los Angeles violated a general prohibition on using federal troops as civilian law enforcement. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer will hear testimony from three military and immigration officials as the judge weighs whether sending in troops to combat immigration protests violated the Posse Comitatus Act. …

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Trump-Putin talks ‘painful’ for Ukraine’s former POWs

As President Trump seeks a breakthrough in talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday, former Ukrainian prisoners of war (POWs) are torn. A ceasefire deal could finally free thousands of Ukrainian soldiers who remain in Russian prisons, but it could also mean ceding land that thousands have died fighting to defend. “The guys who have been there have been rotting,” said Oleksandr Didur, a service member in …

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Trump knocks Zelensky for resisting ‘land swap’ with Russia

President Trump criticized Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday over the leader’s resistance to cede territory to Russia, saying he disagrees “very, very severely” with Zelensky. “I get along with Zelensky, but, you know, I disagree with what he’s done. Very, very severely disagree. This is a war that should have never happened,” Trump told reporters at the White House, referring to Russia’s more than three-year …

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In Other News

Branch out with a different read from The Hill:

Former attorney general says FBI can’t return Texas lawmakers who fled state

Former Attorney General Eric Holder said Sunday the FBI does not have jurisdiction to return Texas Democratic lawmakers who fled their state. “Texas lawmakers are digging in. You heard Gov. [Greg] Abbott there talking about the FBI, Sen. [John] Cornyn calling the FBI to help locate those Democratic …

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On Our Radar

Upcoming things we’re watching in and around the defense world:

Stimson Center will host a virtual discussion on “North Korean Foreign Policy in Focus: Emerging Scholar Perspectives,” at 9 a.m.
President Trump is set to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

What We’re Reading

News we’ve flagged from other outlets:

A sidelined Zelensky warns that Russia will try to deceive the U.S. (The New York Times)
What Trump can — and can’t — do in his bid to take over law enforcement in DC (Politico)
Defense Secretary Hegseth promotes video of man claiming women shouldn’t be allowed to vote (Military.com)