DC Mayor Fires Back at Trump Sending In Troops: ‘We’re at a 30-Year Violent Crime Low’
Washington, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser made public remarks on Monday following President Donald Trump deploying the National Guard to DC and federalizing the city’s police department in a bid to bring down crime.
Bowser called Trump’s move “unsettling and unprecedented” and argued that crime in the city had already begun to fall following post-Covid highs, suggesting Trump’s move was unnecessary.
“ Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals—roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs, and homeless people,” declared Trump during his Monday announcement at the White House.
Bowser began her remarks by pushing back on Trump’s description of her city. “So it’s very important to me that for all who live here and visit here, just know how beautiful our city is and how proud we are of all that we’ve accomplished here,” she began, adding:
We’re unique in other ways as well, though. We pay taxes. In fact, we pay more than most states per capita. We’re not a state. We don’t control the D.C. National Guard. We don’t have senators or full autonomy. Limited home rule gives the federal government the ability to intrude on our autonomy in many ways.
Bowser then offered her take on why Trump is taking the action he did, “I’ve said before and I’ll repeat that I believe that the president’s view of D.C. is shaped by his COVID-era experience during his first term. And it is true that those were more challenging times related to some issues. It is also true that we experienced a crime spike post-COVID.”
“But we worked quickly to put laws in place and tactics that got violent offenders off our streets and gave our police officers more tools, which is why we have seen a huge decrease in crime. Because of those efforts, we have been able to reverse that 2023 crime spike. This year, crime isn’t just down from 2023. It’s also down from 2019, before the pandemic. And we’re at a 30-year violent crime low,” she said, adding:
We’re not satisfied. We haven’t taken our foot off the gas, and we continue to look for ways to make our city safer. We know, however, as most have heard from the President’s press conference, that he has prerogatives in D.C. unlike anywhere else in the country, including his authority given by our home rule charter to require the mayor—to require me—to supply services of the Metropolitan Police Department.
And he also has control and the ability to deploy the National Guard. But let me be clear, as our home rule charter is also clear and the president’s executive order restates: Chief Pamela Smith is the chief of the Metropolitan Police Department, and its 3,100 members work under her direction. The Home Rule Charter requires the mayor to provide the services of MPD during special conditions of an emergency, and we will follow the law, though there’s a question about the subjectivity of that declaration.
Watch the clip above via CNN.
