by Sharelle B. McNair
August 14, 2025
A number of Democratic leaders on the metropolis and state ranges have overtly condemned the President’s strikes however Bowser seemingly used the chance to welcome the problem as assist for native regulation enforcement.
Evidently Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is between a rock and a tough place as President Donald Trump has unleashed the Nationwide Guard on the streets of our nation’s capital amid a name to crack down on rising crime, NBC Information experiences.
By taking management of the Metropolitan Police Division, Trump known as on Bowser to hitch in and cooperate with the order of his administration. Whereas a number of Democratic leaders on the metropolis and state ranges have overtly condemned the President’s strikes — as he threatens to do the identical in different metro cities — Bowser seemingly used the chance to welcome the problem as assist for native regulation enforcement. “What I’m centered on is the federal surge and how you can profit from the extra officer help that we’ve,” Bowser mentioned following a gathering with Lawyer Basic Pam Bondi.
Whereas she has labeled Trump’s transfer to neighborhood leaders as an “authoritarian push,” Bowser’s tone has been described as extra measured than that of different leaders from the blue aspect of the aisle. Home Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) turned the tables on the indicted politician, stating, “The Trump administration has persistently damaged the regulation and violated the Structure to additional the non-public and political agenda of a wannabe king.”
Beginning Aug. 11, regulation enforcement on the federal degree has been seen parading the streets of D.C. in what the Trump administration has described as “a crime-fighting effort” along with eradicating homeless individuals off the streets. The considerations concerning the federal takeover are supported by laws from many years in the past. Since Washington, D.C. isn’t a state, the federal authorities has the fitting to overhaul metropolis affairs, regardless of the 1973 Residence Rule Act, which grants the town the fitting to elect its personal mayor and council members.
I hope your neighborhood isn’t occupied like LA or DC. However whether it is, you’ll shortly discover that folks don’t take kindly to having their metropolis beneath federal management. And people are simply getting began.
📌 Protesters gathered close to a checkpoint within the U Road hall in Northwest… pic.twitter.com/CVWwiaiLUH
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) August 14, 2025
Nonetheless, some leaders perceive Bowser’s standpoint, no matter her again being towards the wall. Washington, D.C. Metropolis Council member Christina Henderson says she empathizes with the mayor. “You do not need to be the mayor that loses dwelling rule, and that there isn’t a mayor after you,” Henderson mentioned, in keeping with CNN.
As Bowser’s group has highlighted her ability of eradicating feelings from sure conditions, political analyst for D.C. public radio station WAMU and veteran metropolis reporter Tom Sherwood mentioned the mayor is being good together with her strategic methods. “I imagine that the mayor has performed all she will be able to do to are inclined to the weather-vane perspective of President Trump,” Sherwood mentioned.
“The picture from the president is that the district is a liberal, principally Black metropolis that doesn’t care about preventing crime, and in order that’s left the mayor and the DC Council as prime targets for him.”
Whereas Trump known as the mayor “ one that has tried” and given many possibilities, his anti-Black rhetoric remains to be on the forefront of everybody’s thoughts. In 2020, the president, throughout his first time period, employed the Nationwide Guard to violently break up peaceable Black Lives Matter protests. He then used the second for a photograph op in entrance of a church, holding up a Bible in an odd transfer to handle the press. The organizing director of Free DC, a motion that requires accountability within the district’s statehood, Nee Nee Taylor, remembers the backlash from that second and feels Bowser is doing the most effective that she will be able to. “I believe she’s standing as much as the most effective of her capability, being that DC isn’t a state,” Taylor mentioned.
Nonetheless, she isn’t blind to what residents really feel is Trump’s true agenda. “Black Washingtonians have lengthy acknowledged that neighborhood violence can’t be solved by means of state violence,” she continued. “We is not going to be idle as oppressors’ buildings attempt to hurt our communities and take energy.”
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