By Elijah Edwards and Ryan Saenz
August 18, 2025
Hundreds of protesters marched from Dupont Circle to the White House on Saturday, opposing President Donald Trump’s decision to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department and deploy hundreds of National Guard troops across the city.
Protesters gathered at around 2 p.m. in over 90 degree heat with signs reading “Trump Must Go Now,” “Refuse Fascism” and “Free D.C.,” before marching over two miles to the White House, where speakers condemned the Trump administration’s historic move to assert federal control over D.C.’s police department. The demonstrators, equipped with whistles, megaphones and tall orange banners that read “We refuse to accept a fascist America” in both English and Spanish, called for Trump to remove National Guard troops immediately and to return control of the city’s police force back to local officials.
The protest — organized by Refuse Fascism, which anti-Trump protesters founded in the wake of the 2016 election — comes amid the Trump administration’s intensified efforts to crack down on crime in D.C. through federal intervention. Trump on Monday invoked Section 740 of D.C.’s Home Rule Act for the first time in history, which allows the president to assume federal control of the police under “conditions of an emergency nature.” Trump also deployed 800 D.C. National Guard troops to assist police as he promised to “rescue” the city from violent crime, despite violent crime dropping 35 percent in 2024, reaching a 30-year low for the city.
Emma Sherman, a rising sophomore majoring in political science, said she attended the Dupont Circle rally and participated in the march from Dupont to the White House because she wanted to be with the D.C. community as Trump exerts his control over the city. She said she stayed in D.C. over the summer and was shocked by Trump’s takeover of the MPD because she believes Trump is lying about the state of crime in the District.
“As we walked the streets, there were fellow D.C. residents just there cheering us on, recording us, hyping us up,” Sherman said.