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Trump administration names DEA head to be D.C.'s emergency police commissioner

By Meg Anderson,
Michel Martin
Published August 15, 2025 at 4:09 AM EDT

MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:

Attorney General Pam Bondi has taken President Trump's crackdown on crime in Washington, D.C., a step further. She's now named the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration to be the city's emergency police commissioner. The response from D.C. officials was swift. This morning, the D.C. attorney general sued the Trump administration over the move. This comes as the National Guard, the FBI and other federal entities are already working on this initiative. They're working around the clock to follow Trump's directive. NPR criminal justice reporter Meg Anderson is here with us in the studio to tell us more about it. Good morning.

MEG ANDERSON, BYLINE: Good morning.

MARTIN: So what can you tell us about the appointment of a new emergency police commissioner and then this lawsuit from D.C.?

ANDERSON: Yeah. So late last night, Attorney General Bondi issued a directive stating that the DEA head, Terry Cole, will assume all the powers and duties normally vested in the D.C. police chief. That includes directing police department policy, and it is a major escalation in all of this. In an interview with Fox News, Bondi said the reason behind this move is to crack down on immigration. There's a law passed in 2020 in D.C. that restricted how police can work with federal immigration authorities, and D.C. leaders have been quick to push back. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser said last night there's no law that allows a federal official to take over personnel authority. And this morning, the attorney general in D.C. sued the Trump administration, saying the police takeover was unlawful, calling it a hostile takeover. So that really puts up in the air who's actually in control of the city's police department right now.

MARTIN: So, Meg, tell us a little bit about how this initiative by the president is playing out so far. I mean, he says initially it was to address street crime. You know, a lot of residents of the district dispute that or they have different views about what this is really about. But to the stated reason, how is it working so far?

ANDERSON: Yeah. So as of yesterday afternoon, all 800 National Guard troops that were planned for this have been mobilized. I should note that they are not carrying weapons. The Pentagon has said about 200 guardsmen at a time are on the streets with federal law enforcement and the D.C. police. We also know that, you know, those troops, along with the federal officers, are working 24 hours a day, as you said, instead of just surging at night like they were earlier in the week.

MARTIN: When this initiative was launched, Attorney General Pam Bondi said, quote, "crime in D.C. is ending and ending today," unquote. So is the administration doing what they said they were going to do?

ANDERSON: Yeah, so we don't have the numbers for last night, but administration officials have stated that law enforcement has made more than 60 arrests so far. But for context, for the same three-day period last year, MPD arrested three times as many people, around a hundred and eighty. And in general, signs of a stronger police presence have been spotty. We'll see if that changes. Police are definitely out. On Wednesday night, there was a checkpoint set up along a popular nightlife area. A juvenile curfew begins later today in part of the district, and they have also been breaking up homeless encampments. They did a number of those yesterday, and many people said they didn't really have anywhere to go.

MARTIN: So before we let you go, Meg, the president has said that he wants to target crime. You went to some neighborhoods that have experienced higher crime rates to talk to people there. What are they saying about all this?

ANDERSON: Yeah. So first, I should say violent crime in D.C. has actually been falling since a surge in 2023. It's now at a 30-year low, according to the Justice Department. But, you know, crime is definitely still a problem in some neighborhoods, and people in those neighborhoods said sometimes they feel unsafe there. And, you know, so it's complicated. It's not the dystopian emergency that Trump has described, but people are still living with that reality of crime.

MARTIN: And what do they say about this federal - these federal personnel moving in?

ANDERSON: You know, the vast majority of people say they are not - they are very much opposed to this.

MARTIN: That is NPR's Meg Anderson. Meg, thank you.

ANDERSON: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
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Meg Anderson
Meg Anderson is an editor on NPR's Investigations team, where she shapes the team's groundbreaking work for radio, digital and social platforms. She served as a producer on the Peabody Award-winning series Lost Mothers, which investigated the high rate of maternal mortality in the United States. She also does her own original reporting for the team, including the series Heat and Health in American Cities, which won multiple awards, and the story of a COVID-19 outbreak in a Black community and the systemic factors at play. She also completed a fellowship as a local reporter for WAMU, the public radio station for Washington, D.C. Before joining the Investigations team, she worked on NPR's politics desk, education desk and on Morning Edition. Her roots are in the Midwest, where she graduated with a Master's degree from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism.
See stories by Meg Anderson
Michel Martin
Michel Martin is the weekend host of All Things Considered, where she draws on her deep reporting and interviewing experience to dig in to the week's news. Outside the studio, she has also hosted "Michel Martin: Going There," an ambitious live event series in collaboration with Member Stations.
See stories by Michel Martin
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