The Republican governors of West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio announced Saturday they will send National Guard troops to Washington, DC, in an escalation of President Donald Trump’s efforts to federally take over law enforcement in the city.

The shift comes after defense officials said the soldiers deployed to the capital wouldn’t be armed.

West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina — are set to deploy hundreds of National Guard troops to Washington. And, in a reversal of their previous stance, Defense officials now say many of those troops will be armed.

The trial over President Trump's deployment of thousands of National Guard troops to Los Angeles earlier this summer reached its third and final day Wednesday.

West Virginia, South Carolina and Ohio are sending several hundred National Guard troops to Washington to bolster the federal deployment that President Donald Trump has ordered in his effort to reduce crime in the nation’s capital.

A federal judge in San Francisco is weighing whether the Trump administration violated federal law by sending National Guard troops to accompany federal agents on immigration raids in Southern California.

Returning from a summit in Alaska, Mr. Trump said early on Saturday that he and President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had discussed working toward a full peace deal in Ukraine instead of first agreeing to a cease-fire.