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US President Donald Trump has said homeless people must be moved “far” from Washington, after days of musing about taking federal control of the US capital, where he has falsely suggested crime is rising.

The Republican billionaire has announced a press conference in which he is expected to reveal his plans for Washington – which is run by the locally elected government of the District of Columbia under congressional oversight.

It is an arrangement Trump has long publicly chafed at. He has threatened to federalise the city and give the White House the final say in how it is run.

“I’m going to make our capital safer and more beautiful than it ever was before,” the President posted on his Truth Social platform.

“The homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY. We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the capital,” he continued, adding that criminals in the city would be swiftly imprisoned.

“It’s all going to happen very fast,” he said.

Washington is ranked No 15 on a list of major US cities by homeless population, according to government statistics from last year.

While thousands of people spend each night in shelters or on the streets, the figures are down from pre-pandemic levels.

Trump has also threatened to deploy the National Guard as part of a crackdown on what he falsely says is rising crime in Washington.

Violent crime in the capital fell in the first half of 2025 by 26% compared with a year earlier, police statistics show.

The city’s crime rates in 2024 were already their lowest in three decades, according to figures produced by the Justice Department before Trump took office.

“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” Washington Mayor Muriel Bowser said.

While the mayor, a Democrat, was not critical of Trump in her remarks, she said “any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false”.

Trump’s threat to send in the National Guard comes weeks after he deployed California’s military reserve force into Los Angeles to quell protests over immigration raids, despite objections from local leaders and law enforcement.

The President has frequently mused about using the military to control America’s cities, many of which are under Democratic control and hostile to his nationalist impulses.

- Agence France-Presse