The two shot National Guard troops never should have been in DC. More troops is no answer.

The violence is horrible and unacceptable. Trump, Pete Hegseth, and West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey never should have put the troops in this position.

Chris Geidner
Nov 26, 2025



Following Wednesday’s shooting of two National Guard troops patrolling downtown Washington, D.C., and reports that the suspect is a person who came to the U.S. from Afghanistan in 2021, President Donald Trump announced — in a speech full of racist, anti-immigrant attacks — that he had ordered the mobilization of an additional 500 troops to D.C.

The shooting is horrible, and the West Virginia National Guard troops should not have faced violence on Wednesday or any day. ... The two people from West Virginia who were shot on Wednesday were only in Washington, D.C., because West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey — more than 100 days ago — decided to participate in Trump’s authoritarian attack on the people of Washington, D.C. ... “West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation’s capital,” Morrisey said in a news release at the time — ignoring D.C.’s own view that it already was proud and beautiful — by committing to sending “approximately 300-400 skilled personnel as directed” to D.C.

Troops were sent to D.C. over the summer as a stunt — at best — by Republican governors wanting to make Trump happy. They have been on litter patrols, Metro station patrols, standing around Dupont Circle (I’ve personally seen this more than a dozen times), standing around the National Mall, walking up and down 14th Street, and so on. There is nothing that they have done that local law enforcement or, more simply, people in the neighborhoods couldn’t have done just as well, yet these National Guard troops have been put in the position of quite literally being the faces of Trump’s authoritarianism. (This is all the more so given the masks so often worn by this administration’s immigration enforcers.)

More than 100 days later, they are still here. For no real reason besides Trump’s desperate desire to have them here as a sign of his control. Between members of the D.C. National Guard and those from others states, more than 2,000 troops remain in D.C. this week. ... The shooting came nearly a week after U.S. District Judge Jia Cobb ruled that the deployments — both as to the D.C. National Guard and those from states — were likely unlawful. ... Yet now — as unsurprising as it is a bad decision — Trump is calling for more troops to be deployed in D.C.

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