Determined to restore law and order to the nation’s capital, President Trump signed a sweeping executive order Thursday that creates a federal task force to clean up Washington, D.C., combat violent crime, and erase the physical decay that’s plagued the city in recent years.

“It is the policy of the United States to make the District of Columbia safe, beautiful, and prosperous,” the order reads, laying out a bold plan to prevent crime, punish criminals, restore public order, and reclaim the city’s monuments, parks, and heritage from years of neglect and radical policy experiments.

The numbers justify the urgency. D.C. scored a 2 out of 100 on Neighborhood Scout’s crime index in 2023, experiencing the biggest spike in violent crime in the country, including more murders than any year since 1997. While the city claimed some improvement in 2024, the White House notes those gains are misleading and still leave crime rates far above pre-2020 levels.

“This mirrors the spin they tried to put on ‘decreases’ in the rate of inflation,” the White House said in a fact sheet. “Inflation is still up — and so is crime. And Americans are smart enough to notice.”

The new D.C. Safe and Beautiful Task Force will consist of officials from the Departments of Homeland Security, Interior, and Transportation, as well as the FBI, ATF, U.S. Marshals, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices from D.C., Maryland, and Virginia. Their mission: restore the city’s safety, revive its beauty, and hold criminals — including illegal aliens — fully accountable.

The task force is charged with a long list of objectives, including:

• Boosting the presence of law enforcement officers throughout D.C.

• Clearing homeless encampments and unlawful protests

• Combatting public drug use and vandalism

• Cracking down on crime in the Metro transit system

• Maximizing immigration enforcement and deportations

• Restoring and beautifying parks, monuments, federal buildings, and roadways

The order also pushes to fix the city’s broken crime lab, reinforce D.C. police recruitment and retention, and expedite concealed carry licenses for law-abiding citizens.

But Trump’s initiative isn’t just about policing — it’s also about civic pride. The order includes directives to restore historical statues and monuments removed or defaced in recent years, many of which were torn down during the 2020 Black Lives Matter riots and the cultural upheaval that followed.

“This is not the place that I left,” Trump said last year. “It’s a very sad thing to see it.”

The president has made no secret of his frustration with D.C.’s Democratic leadership, even warning Mayor Muriel Bowser earlier this month that if she couldn’t clean up the homeless encampments and graffiti-infested public areas near the White House and State Department, the federal government would take over.

“I like the mayor. I get along great with the mayor. But they’re not doing the job,” Trump said. “Too much crime. Too much graffiti. Too many tents on the lawns — these magnificent lawns — and there’s tents.”

Bowser has since taken action to remove several homeless camps and controversially erased the “Black Lives Matter” street mural outside the White House, signaling at least partial cooperation.

“As the capital city of the greatest Nation in the history of the world,” Trump wrote in his order, “it should showcase beautiful, clean, and safe public spaces.”

The timing of the move isn’t accidental. Trump has long envisioned Washington, D.C., as a reflection of America’s greatness — and with his second term already packed with aggressive reforms, he’s putting the world on notice: the decay of the Trump years is over. The restoration of order, beauty, and pride has begun.