WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump will get a firsthand look at his federal takeover of policing in the District of Columbia when he heads out on patrol Thursday evening with law enforcement and military personnel.

Trump made the stunning announcement during a call-in segment to a conservative radio program, telling host Todd Starnes, “I’m going to be going out tonight, I think, with the police and with the military, of course.

“So we’re going to do a job,” Trump added without describing exactly what his patrol would look like on D.C.’s streets.

Asked for more details on exactly what Trump would be doing later Thursday, a White House official responded via email: “Details forthcoming.”

Ever the showman, Trump has annoyed Democrats during two terms and three campaigns by declaring himself the nation’s top law enforcement officer. While technically true, most presidents have delegated that role and moniker to their attorneys general.

The spectacle comes after Trump on Aug. 11 used a rare appearance in the White House briefing room to announce he would use his office’s powers to take over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department and deploy National Guard troops around the nation’s capital.

The president that day called violent crime, car thefts, homelessness and uncleanliness in the District “out of control,” adding from a lectern with the presidential seal affixed to its front: “We’re going to take our capital back.”

“We’re not going to let it happen anymore. … We’re not going to take it,” he said, contending the murder and violent crime rate in D.C. is higher than in some of the “worst places on earth,” mentioning Bogota, Colombia, and Mexico City, Mexico.

On Tuesday, Trump called into Fox News and declared he had made the district “just an incredible place in, in literally four days.”

“I have friends that say they’re going out to dinner,” he added a day after he claimed to reporters to have received phone calls from friends who live in D.C. but had not dined at a restaurant in several years.

Trump and his top aides assert that D.C.’s violent crime rate is at an all-time high. But a closer look at MPD and Justice Department numbers shows violent crimes have been falling over the last 12 months — though that means, by definition, they mostly have returned to still-high, pre-spike levels.

During his Aug. 11 news conference, Trump assessed the state of the district this way: “It’s becoming a situation of complete and total lawlessness. And we’re getting rid of the slums too. We have slums here. We’re getting rid of them. I know it’s not politically correct.

“You’ll say, ‘Oh, so terrible.’ No, we’re getting rid of the slums where they live. Caravans of masked youth rampage through city streets at all times of the day. They’re on ATVs, motorbikes. They travel pretty well,” he added. “Entire neighborhoods are now under emergency curfews.”

MPD officers have assisted U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and other federal agents on immigration-related arrests, an issue Trump as recently as this week told reporters helped propel him to two White House terms.

Trump’s D.C. policing takeover and the subsequent sometimes heavy-handed moves by local and federal officers have outraged many congressional Democrats.

“Every day Washingtonians are confronted with new outrages from Trump’s unwanted and unjustified occupation of D.C., including arrests using excessive force that put people in unnecessary danger,” Rep. Don Beyer, D-Va., said in a Wednesday statement. “Many of these encounters have been captured on video taken by bystanders or journalists, and I cannot help but wonder what we are not seeing because it is not caught on video.”

The president has called on Congress, once it finishes its annual summer recess, to repeal the 1973 D.C. Home Rule Act and pass a “crime bill” to end practices like “no-cash bail” and provide more crime-fighting resources and flexibility.

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