Trump May 'Fabricate a National Emergency' to Extend DC Takeover Without Congressional Support

U.S. President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday he may declare a national emergency to circumvent Congress and continue his military occupation of Washington, D.C. indefinitely.

Under the Home Rule Act, the president is allowed to unilaterally take control of law enforcement in the nation's capital for 30 days. After that, Congress must extend its authorization through a joint resolution.

The authorization would need 60 votes to break the Senate filibuster, meaning some Democrats would need to sign on. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) has said there's "no fucking way" they would, adding that some Republicans would likely vote against it as well.

During a speech at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, Trump said that if Congress won't approve his indefinite deployment of the National Guard, he'll just invoke emergency powers.

"If it's a national emergency, we can do it without Congress, but we expect to be before Congress very quickly," Trump said.

"I don't want to call a national emergency," Trump said, before adding, "If I have to, I will."

Announcing his federal takeover of the D.C. police, Trump said he would authorize the cops to "do whatever the hell they want" when patrolling the city.

On Wednesday, a day after troops deployed to D.C., federal agents set up a security checkpoint on the busy 14th Street Northwest Corridor, where Newsweek reports that they have been conducting random stops, which have previously been ruled unconstitutional.

One eyewitness described seeing agents "in unmarked cars without badges pulling people out of their cars and taking them away."

Other similar scenes of what appear to be random and arbitrary stops and arrests have been documented around the city.

"President Trump fabricated the 'emergency' that's required to exist for a president to federalize D.C. Police," said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District of Columbia's nonvoting congressional delegate on X. "He admitted to reporters today that he's willing to fabricate a national emergency in order to try to extend his power."

It would not be the first time Trump called a national emergency in an attempt to suspend the usual checks on his power.

In 2019—despite border crossings being at historic lows—he declared a national emergency to reroute billions of dollars to construct his border wall after Congress refused to approve it. He has also declared a national emergency at the U.S. border.

He has used national emergency declarations even more liberally in his second term, including to send U.S. troops to the Southern border, to expedite oil drilling projects, and to enact extreme tariffs without congressional approval.

According to Joseph Nunn, a legal scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice, Trump is already abusing the language of the Home Rule Act, which only allows D.C. law enforcement to be federalized in "special conditions of an emergency nature."

Though the law does not explicitly define what constitutes a "national emergency," Nunn says, "the word 'emergency' has meaning. An emergency is a sudden crisis, an unexpected change in circumstances." That would be at odds with the facts on the ground in D.C., where crime has fallen dramatically over the past year.

After Trump floated using a national emergency to extend his occupation of D.C., Justin Amash—a former Republican congressman who was ousted in 2021 after breaking with Trump—wrote on X that "emergency powers are the lifeblood of authoritarians."

"Once established in law, they're nearly impossible to revoke because a president can veto any bill curtailing the power," Amash said. "We always live under dozens of active 'national emergencies,' almost none of which are true emergencies."

Trump also said he was working with congressional Republicans on a "crime bill" that will "pertain initially to D.C." but will be expanded to apply to other blue cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. Despite Trump's portrayal of these cities as crime-ridden hellscapes, crime is falling in every single one of them.

"What Donald Trump is doing is, in some ways, a dress rehearsal for going after others around the country. And I think we need to stop this—certainly by the end of the 30 days," said Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). "This should never have started, so I definitely want to make sure it doesn't continue."