Trump-DC live updates: National Guard hit streets of Washington as mayor attacks ‘authoritarian push’

Mayor Muriel Bowser again criticized the Trump administration’s anti-crime strategy during a virtual town hall event with local citizens on Tuesday, just as the Guard were taking to the streets..

Taking questions from residents, Bowser was asked how faith groups could help support the community, prompting her to urge residents to protect the city.

“This is a time when the community needs to jump in,” she said.

“To protect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule.

“Get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.”

Members of the District of Columbia National Guard began their first night of operations in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday as part of President Donald Trump’s anti-crime crackdown in the nation’s capital.

Troops were seen leaving the D.C. Armory earlier Tuesday and by the evening a group of about a dozen Guard personnel stood with five parked military Humvee trucks near the Washington Monument before later departing for an unknown location.

“We just did a presence patrol to be amongst the people, to be seen,” Master Sgt. Cory Boroff, one of the Guard troops near the Monument, told The New York Times.

“Of the people, for the people in D.C.,” he added.

Officials have not disclosed the exact number of troops deployed to the streets on Tuesday as part of the president’s decision, announced on Monday, to call 800 Guard personnel to the capital to fight what he has described as rampant violent crime in Washington.

Here’s a full report from Josh Marcus.

Hello and welcome to The Independent’s live coverage of Donald Trump and his administration after the president dispatched National Guard troops to the streets to stamp out crime in Washington, D.C., which he has insisted is “out of control,” despite official data suggesting the opposite is true.