About ten teenagers surrounded a DOGE staffer on a DC street last August and beat him bloody while trying to steal his car.
Trump deployed the National Guard, seized control of DC's police department, and drove carjackings to their lowest level in years.
Now DC is about to elect a mayor who wants to undo every single thing he did.
The Socialist Who Just Won DC's Democratic Primary
Janeese Lewis George won Washington DC's Democratic mayoral primary earlier this month, beating six opponents to succeed outgoing Mayor Muriel Bowser.
She is a self-described democratic socialist endorsed by Black Lives Matter, the Working Families Party, and the Metro DC Democratic Socialists of America.
Her platform reads like a wishlist for everyone who wants American cities to burn.
Trump laid it out on Truth Social Sunday.
"Janeese Lewis George, the Communist who is almost certainly going to be elected Mayor of Washington, D.C., has stated that she wants to empty the prisons, make D.C. a Sanctuary City, oppose ICE, welcome Criminal Illegal Aliens back into our beloved Capital, resist Anti-Crime Crackdowns, Defund the Police, continue and expand Cashless Bail, and so many other Capital destroying 'things,'" he wrote.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071309367434211746?s=20
Then he drew the line: "We will not let it be destroyed by a Communist adherent who has no intention to, MAKE WASHINGTON GREAT AGAIN!"
What Trump Built That George Wants to Tear Down
After the Coristine attack, Trump invoked Section 740 of the DC Home Rule Act to place the Metropolitan Police Department under direct federal control.
He deployed more than 1,000 National Guard members alongside federal officers – and crime collapsed.
Property crimes fell roughly 19 percent in the first week of federal control.
Violent crime dipped 17 percent.
Carjackings – which had hit 607 cases through August of 2023 – fell to just 10 cases in August 2025.
By the end of the year, overall violent crime in DC was down 29 percent.
Trump spent $14 million resurfacing the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.
His administration cleared homeless encampments near the Kennedy Center.
He diverted $90 million in national park fees into DC beautification projects.
Bowser – a Democrat – cooperated with the administration throughout, signed orders authorizing joint city-federal law enforcement operations, and drew bipartisan credit for the results.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071220004800934389?s=20
George has made clear she plans to scrap all of it.
She has introduced legislation to end DC police cooperation with ICE and called the city's autonomy "nonnegotiable" – while making plain that working alongside the federal government on immigration enforcement is off the table entirely.
In other words: she will side with illegal aliens over every DC resident who wants to walk to their car without getting beaten on the street.
What Happens Every Single Time Socialists Run a City
Americans have seen this before, and they know how it ends.
Portland cut $15 million from its police budget in 2020 and disbanded its gun violence reduction unit.
Homicides jumped 83 percent that year alone.
The department bled 200 officers who walked out citing no support from city leadership, leaving the force 128 positions below strength.
DC tried the same playbook.
The city cut its own police budget by $15 million and finished 2020 with a 19 percent spike in violent crime over 2019.
By November 2021, DC had recorded its 200th homicide – a number the city hadn't reached since 2003.
That is what happened to this exact city the last time its leaders moved in George's direction.
https://twitter.com/EricLDaugh/status/2071324215790186722?s=20
Now she wants to go back.
Sanctuary status, ICE opposition, cashless bail, defunded police – the full agenda that gutted Portland, Minneapolis, Chicago, and every other American city that tried it.
Trump Holds Every Card
George is walking into a confrontation she cannot win on paper.
Congress can review and repeal DC's laws and budget.
The president can invoke the Home Rule Act to seize temporary control of the police.
Federal funding flows into Washington that the administration can redirect or cut off.
Congress demonstrated exactly that in 2023 – with a Democrat president in the White House – invoking its review authority for the first time since 1991 to strike down a DC sentencing bill that would have softened penalties for violent offenders.
That is what DC's so-called autonomy actually looks like when Congress decides to use the power it has always held.
Trump has made his position clear: "Many people, including myself, have worked long and hard to get it there, and we will not let it be destroyed…"
George can call that interference.
She can call it a threat to home rule.
But the DC residents who watched their carjacking rate fall from 607 cases to 10 in a single August know what federal involvement looks like – and it looks like being able to walk to your car.
Sources:
- Elizabeth Weibel, "Trump Warns He Will 'Not Let' Communist D.C. Mayoral Candidate Janeese Lewis George Destroy City," Breitbart, June 28, 2026.
- "Trump calls likely DC mayor Janeese Lewis George a 'communist' and vows to block her agenda," Fox News, June 28, 2026.
- "Incoming socialist DC mayor to be hamstrung by Trump," Washington Examiner, June 27, 2026.
- "Police defunded: Major cities feeling the loss of police funding as murders, other crimes soar," Fox News, April 1, 2021.
- "8 Cities That Help Explain National Crime Wave," Heritage Foundation.
- "Trump's DC takeover produces moderate drop in crime – and huge spike in immigration arrests," CNN, August 23, 2025.
- "Violent crime in DC drops in 2025 for second straight year," Axios DC, January 5, 2026.