STORY: U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday (September 25) that he had signed a proclamation allowing the death penalty to be pursued in certain Washington, D.C., prosecutions.

The move would further expand the Republican's efforts to seek the mantle of law-and-order president and to exert power over the nation's capital, whose residents are largely Democrats.

Trump declared an emergency, deployed hundreds of National Guard troops and federal law enforcement officials in the nation's capital to supplement local police dealing with what he said was an unacceptable level of violent street crime.

City officials have rejected the claim that violent crime is rampant, pointing to federal and city statistics that show it has declined significantly since a spike in 2023.

Washington is a unique federal enclave, established in the U.S. Constitution and falling under the jurisdiction of Congress, not belonging to any state.

In 1973, Congress passed the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, allowing residents to elect a mayor and council members. Trump has threatened to take over the management of the city to deal with crime and vagrancy.

Washington has outlawed the death penalty for local crime, but it remains permissible for certain crimes under federal law.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington prosecutes both local and federal crimes in the U.S. capital, and the Trump administration has recently encouraged prosecutors to bring federal charges against those arrested as part of its crackdown on crime in Washington.

DESCRIPCIÓN DE IMÁGENES

VIDEO SHOWS: U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SIGNING EXECUTIVE ORDERS IN WHITE HOUSE

SHOWS: WASHINGTON, D.C., UNITED STATES (SEPTEMBER 25, 2025) (UNRESTRICTED POOL - Access all)

1. WIDE OF U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP IN OVAL OFFICE

2. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, saying:

"Okay, this is the death penalty for somebody that kills people in Washington DC. I think it's capital. It's a very interesting capital punishment. Capital city. That's right. It's capital capital, capital. But this is our capital city. We can't allow that to happen. People come in from Iowa to look at the Lincoln Memorial and they end up getting killed. It doesn't happen anymore. It's not going to happen. And if it does happen, it's the death penalty for the person that did it. And this goes into effect? Yes, sir. Right, Pam? Is that right? Could you speak a little bit about that? (OFF CAMERA ATTORNEY GENERAL PAM BONDI SAYS YES, SIR. NOT ONLY ARE WE SEEKING IT IN WASHINGTON, D.C., BUT ALL OVER THE COUNTRY AGAIN. AND AS YOU SAW VERY RECENTLY, WE ARE NOW MOVING THE INMATES WHO WERE ON DEATH ROW WHO JOE BIDEN OR THE AUTO PIN COMMUTED THEIR SENTENCES OFF OF DEATH ROW, WE'RE MOVING THEM TO SUPERMAX FACILITIES WHERE THEY WILL BE TREATED LIKE THEY'RE ON DEATH ROW FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES PRESIDENT TRUMP.) Okay, that's a big statement, thank you very much. Okay. I see some of you shaking your heads very positively. Thank you Brian. Thank you."

3. REPORTERS LISTENING TO TRUMP

4. (SOUNDBITE) (English) U.S. PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP, saying:

"Ladies and gentlemen, I'd like to announce that Washington, D.C. has not had a death in four weeks, a murder. And he looks at me, goes, is that good or bad? Here? They say, what kind of a place is this? But it's true. For years, I mean, every week, essentially somebody got killed or more than one. And,,this is a very safe city right now. We don't play games. And, you know, it's interesting. We took these careers out career criminals, and they call them careers. They just they left the word criminal out. But we took the careers out of here, and they're now right back to their homes, or they're in jail, or they're in a jail in another country, and hopefully they're not coming back. And we have to maintain it. You can't just leave and we have to maintain it. And we've gotten along fairly well with the mayor. You know, she's getting a party that hates that the city is becoming safe. I mean, they actually criticizing her because the city's becoming safe. But this is becoming a very this is right now a very, very safe city. This is considered ... this went from the most unsafe city in the country to the safest city in the country. There's no city any safer. That's a pretty big achievement. And we really did it in 12 days. But if you add an extra week to it, that would be nice. And I mean, you can go out to dinner. Restaurants are booming. You know, the restaurants were dead. They were dead even if you got to the restaurant, then somebody would come in and hold you up, you know, they'd hold up the whole restaurant. They go to Uber, young ladies in the White House. They call Uber for protection. They'd run to the car because they were petrified to be from the entrance of their building to the car. Now they feel safe. They are in the car, and then the car gets hijacked while they're in the back of the car. This is what we were living in. We were living in hell.

People that work in the White House, every time they see me, young women in particular say thank you sir, and I don't even ask them about what I know exactly how they made their lives. Now they're living in a beautiful, glamorous place called Washington, DC with no crime and that's the way it should be."

5. REPORTERS IN WHITE HOUSE COVERING TRUMP