After US President Donald Trump ordered the deployment of military and federal law enforcement to Washington in August 2025, social media users circulated numerous images purporting to show the scene in the nation's capital.

The influx came the morning after the Republican president announced he would be activating the guard members and taking over the District’s police department, something the law allows him to do temporarily.

Washington DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, a Democrat, who has denied crime is out of control in her city, described the troop deployment as an "authoritarian push". Trump, a Republican, has also threatened similar deployments against New York and Chicago, two other Democratic-controlled cities.