President Donald Trump will ask Congress to pass a “D.C. security fund” as part of his push to remake the capital city, a hugely controversial effort that has seen him take over the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy hundreds of National Guard troops and federal law-enforcement officers into Washington neighborhoods.
The composition of the so-called “security fund” is in its infancy. And the White House will face the reality that Congress has to pass government-funding bills at the end of September, with a potential federal shutdown this fall more likely than not at this point.
Top Democrats are also vowing to oppose any extension of Trump’s authority over D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department, which is limited to 30 days under the 1973 Home Rule Act.
“No fucking way,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer angrily told an interviewer on Wednesday when asked whether Democrats would agree to Trump’s request. “We’ll fight him tooth and nail.”
Like other Democrats, Schumer suggested that Trump “is afraid” of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal. They argue that Trump is trying to distract the American public by falsely claiming a massive crime wave is destroying Washington and other U.S. cities even as crime rates fall.
Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) are pushing a bill calling for the release of the full Epstein files. The House Oversight Committee has also issued an Aug. 19 subpoena to the Justice Department for the Epstein files.
“This is a phony, manufactured crisis if I’ve ever seen one,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin (Md.), top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee.
House and Senate Democratic lawmakers and aides said they don’t see — at this moment — any huge political fallout from opposing Trump over the issue, despite warnings from some in the media that Democrats risk looking soft on crime.
Trump, however, suggested he could declare a “national emergency” and extend that MPD deadline unilaterally. There’s nothing in the Home Rule Act covering that scenario, so it’s unclear what authority Trump is citing.
“You can’t have 30 days,” Trump told reporters during a Kennedy Center press conference on Wednesday. “We’re going to do this very quickly, but we’re going to want extensions. I don’t want to call a national emergency, but if I have to, I will.”
The dueling statements by Trump and Democrats show how much of a political flashpoint the president’s actions in D.C. have become.
Trump asserts that Washington is “going to hell,” painting a picture of a city overrun by gangs and other criminals. He’s ordered roughly 800 National Guard troops deployed into D.C., along with hundreds of other federal law enforcement officers from an array of agencies.
The White House said on Wednesday that federal officers have made more than 100 arrests for a host of crimes.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser — whom Trump praised on Wednesday — and other city officials note that D.C. crime is down substantially from the post-pandemic spike of 2023. Trump counters that the statistics being cited by D.C. officials are a “total fraud.”
Unlike the MPD, Trump already has authority over the D.C. National Guard, and he can deploy those troops inside the city.
What they’ll be doing is another issue. National Guard troops can’t make arrests like law-enforcement officers, although they can detain individuals if there’s a threat of violence to people or property.
Sources involved in the process say that Trump’s proposed D.C. fund would be used to fix roads, bridges, fund police and improve public spaces. There’s no price tag for this legislation yet, although some officials have ballparked it in the single-digit billions of dollars. Trump suggested it would be for “a relatively small amount of money.”
It’s also not clear whether this legislation would help pay for the National Guard deployment in the nation’s capital.
Senate Budget Committee Chair Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) wrote on X that the D.C. package would be sent to him and Sen. Katie Britt (R-Ala.), who chairs the Homeland Security appropriations subcommittee.
Yet the DHS bill is always extremely difficult to pass, given that it includes border security and immigration-related funding.
Britt’s Democratic counterpart on the subcommittee, Sen. Chris Murphy (Conn.), has already vowed that he won’t cooperate with Republicans on FY2026 spending bills. That’s even before considering the D.C.-centric funding mechanism that the White House is floating.
Graham said the goal of the package is to “give President Trump the resources he will need to improve the safety and quality of life in our nation’s capital.”
Government-funding showdown. Trump was also asked on Wednesday whether he’d meet with Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to discuss FY2026 funding with a shutdown looming on Oct. 1. Trump’s answer wasn’t very encouraging.
“We will meet, but nothing is gonna come out of that meeting,” Trump asserted. “So, we’re going to meet with them, of course. I’d like to meet them. We’re going to tell them all these good things, and they’re going to tell us no.
“But it’s almost a waste of time to meet because they never approve anything,” Trump added.
