Trump dines out near White House and says he’ll send troops to another US city

US President Donald Trump said he plans to deploy federal troops to another US city, as he made a surprise visit to a Washington DC restaurant in a bid to argue his federal takeover of the city’s law enforcement is working.

“We’ll announce it probably tomorrow, and it’s going to be something where we will do like we did here,” Trump told reporters Tuesday outside Joe’s Seafood, Prime Steak and Stone Crab, an upscale surf and turf restaurant near the White House.

The president said he was working with a governor “who would love us to be there”, though did not name the city, state nor politician he was in contact with. Trump earlier this month suggested he might deploy the National Guard to New Orleans, which is in a state that has a Republican governor, before his long-threatened operation in Chicago, where Democratic Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson have opposed such a move.

Trump has claimed Washington is now effectively a “crime-free zone” after he placed the Metropolitan Police Department under federal control and deployed National Guard troops to the capital to crack down on what he had cast as rampant lawlessness and violence.

The announcement came as crime rates were falling in the city, with the Justice Department reporting in January that violent offences had fallen to a 30-year low in 2024.