Elected Democrats at each stage of presidency are watching the Trump administration’s strikes to police the District of Columbia carefully, worrying that the president’s efforts to exert extra energy will attain their cities subsequent.
President Donald Trump on Monday introduced that he put town’s police division underneath federal management and activated the Nationwide Guard to patrol town, evoking one other occasion from earlier this yr that put Democrats on edge: Trump’s deployment of the Nationwide Guard in Los Angeles. As Trump paints U.S. cities as “violent” and “drugged out,” he stated his administration plans to crack down on homeless encampments and crime in America’s city facilities with full drive “beginning with D.C.”
He promised that federal involvement would “go additional,” and instructed cities might keep away from federal motion in the event that they “clear up” their crime charges. Democrats say they’re beginning to establish a sample of federal overreach from Trump, notably within the affairs of cities in states run by Democrats.
“With Donald Trump, you may get any stage of response on any given day, and he believes that he has some particular privilege to intervene and meddle with the capabilities of New York Metropolis,” Keith Powers, a New York Metropolis council member, instructed NOTUS. “He did it on congestion pricing and transportation, and positively he’ll do it once more sooner or later with regards to deploying the Nationwide Guard.”
A part of Trump’s argument is that he’s placing a cease to crime. However within the District of Columbia and different massive cities run by Democrats,metropolis officers have spent months boasting about their dropping crime charges. That’s prompting fears from officers there that the bettering statistics they’re citing gained’t be sufficient to fend off the specter of Trump sending within the Nationwide Guard.
“We’ve seen nice outcomes over the previous couple of months of lowering main crimes and protecting folks secure right here within the metropolis,” Powers stated. “So even the timing of this feels unusual to me, and looks like one other try for Donald Trump to only threaten those who don’t agree together with his ideology.”
Democratic lawmakers in some blue states have been already gearing up to answer army enforcement after Trump in June referred to as for expanded deportations in Los Angeles, Chicago and New York. However Monday’s announcement prompted a brand new wave of considerations, particularly after Trump stated he was going to “have a look at” the administration’s subsequent steps for these three cities, in addition to in Oakland and Baltimore. He added that the administration will “do the identical factor” if obligatory in different cities.
Oakland Metropolis Council member Charlene Wang instructed NOTUS that she is just not “anticipating it’s going to occur within the subsequent day,” however that she is taking Trump’s feedback significantly.
“It’s time to start out pondering how we as a metropolis want to reply if this turns into a actuality,” Wang stated, including that sheplans to have conversations along with her metropolis authorities colleagues about authorized recourse and different potential responses.
The White Home didn’t reply to questions on its plans for different cities, however an official pointed NOTUS to Washington’s 2024 crime charges.
“In just some nights, President Trump’s daring actions to Make DC Secure Once more have already eliminated harmful weapons and unlawful medicine from DC streets — and that’s not even taking into consideration the numerous potential crimes that have been deterred due to a big, seen regulation enforcement presence,” White Home spokesperson Abigail Jackson wrote in an announcement. “That is simply one other promise made, promise stored for President Trump.”
Within the District of Columbia, there appeared to be little shock about what was taking place throughout her metropolis from Mayor Muriel Bowser, who stated she’d been compelled way back to think about the opportunity of Trump making an attempt to take energy away from her administration.
“Whereas this motion at present is unsettling and unprecedented, I can’t say that, given a few of the rhetoric of the previous, that we’re completely shocked,” Bowser instructed reporters Monday, later briefly referencing Trump’s strikes in California.
With out statehood, the District of Columbia isn’t afforded the identical constitutional protections as most different locations to battle again. However how far the administration can go in exerting itself elsewhere stays an open query.
The Trump administration is embroiled in authorized battles over its deployment of the California Nationwide Guard and the U.S. Marines into the streets of Los Angeles. Bypassing Gov. Gavin Newsom, Trump issued sweeping orders earlier this summer time for troops to crack down on protests in opposition to Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids. Federal judges are actively contemplating the legality of these orders in an ongoing trial.
Los Angeles Metropolis Council member Monica Rodriguez instructed NOTUS that the administration’s earlier actions in her metropolis make the specter of yet one more spherical of federal regulation enforcement enlargement particularly regarding.
“You see people with semiautomatic weaponry and fatigues roaming your avenue,” Rodriguez stated. “It’s meant to inflict concern amongst residents, and that’s, sadly, apparently been the posture of this president.”
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson’s workplace instructed NOTUS that metropolis officers have been “carefully monitoring” the scenario unfolding within the District of Columbia.
“Portland stays a proud Sanctuary Metropolis inside a Sanctuary State, and we proceed to actively oppose federal overreach by coordinated authorized efforts,” a spokesperson for Wilson wrote, including that town has additionally seen violent crime lower this yr due to “native methods and community-based interventions.”
Elected officers in different elements of the nation are additionally nervous, citing fears that the president might set his sights on different blue cities, together with these outdoors his preliminary listing of targets.
Kansas Metropolis Mayor Quinton Lucas guessed that his metropolis was not named in Trump’s announcement as a result of it’s in a Republican-controlled state, affording it a stage of safety in opposition to the administration’s regulation enforcement agenda.
“They don’t actually care about scaring Missourians or Kansans, as a result of they’re already voting this manner, a minimum of the bulk,” Lucas instructed NOTUS.
Trump didn’t explicitly title a number of red-state cities with excessive murder and different crime charges, like Memphis or New Orleans, in his announcement, focusing as an alternative on cities in Democratic strongholds.
However Lucas added he’s apprehensive that if Trump follows by on increasing federal troops in additional cities, Kansas Metropolis might see a rising cycle of “retaliatory violence,” whereas points like the necessity for extra regulation enforcement at massive occasions go ignored.
Chicago alderman Raymond Lopez instructed NOTUS he wasn’t satisfied that “Trump goes to weaponize the Nationwide Guard in opposition to cities like Chicago.”
He stated he was extra fearful that town’s mayor and Illinois’ governor, who’ve been high-profile critics of the administration, are frightening Trump, which may lead the president to retaliate in opposition to town in different methods. Certainly one of his worries was that the administration would pull federal funds, which Trump has already threatened.
“It’s lengthy overdue for our mayor and governor to go meet with Donald Trump to see the place there are any areas of cooperation doable,” Lopez stated. “Constantly poking the bear goes to wind up getting Chicago bit by that bear.”
Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Some Democrats in Congress joined in with native Democratic lawmakers in decrying Trump’s eagerness to ship troops to U.S. cities.
“With D.C. crime at a 30-year low, he’s sending within the Guard in an authoritarian energy seize. We should stand in opposition to it, or different cities shall be subsequent,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez, who represents a part of New York Metropolis, posted Monday on X.
The specter of Trump sending troopers into their backyards places Democrats in a precarious scenario as they weigh their subsequent strikes. A number of leaders have been reticent to remark. Spokespeople for Philadelphia’s and Phoenix’s mayors declined to remark when reached by NOTUS. And spokespeople for the mayors of different main blue-state cities together with Denver, Boston and San Diego didn’t reply.
A few of that silence from native officers could possibly be as a result of they’re determining the right way to transfer ahead strategically, stated LiJia Gong, the coverage and authorized director at Native Progress, a progressive group that works on financial coverage and selling racial justice on the native stage.
She argued that metropolis leaders ought to take Trump’s threats significantly.
“Everybody must be getting ready, and the threats must be taken at face worth,” she stated.
This story was produced as a part of a partnership between NOTUS and The Metropolis.
