D.C. Mayor Walks Delicate Line With Trump, Praising President for Stopping Crime While Highlighting Challenges With Masked Officers

As President Trump is threatening to expand his control over the law enforcement powers of Washington, D.C., the city’s mayor, Muriel Bowser, is arguing that the president is making things worse, even though crime is falling. She says that masked federal agents and National Guard soldiers in the city’s streets are putting her city on edge. Mr. Trump has basked in the spotlight since he invoked the executive authority granted to him by the Home Rule Act, which allows him to federalize the District’s police and military assets. On Wednesday, at a Cabinet meeting at the White House, many of the president’s most senior advisors praised him for his action. The following day, Mr. Trump’s transportation secretary, Sean Duffy, announced that he was taking control of Union Station, which is the largest transit center in the city, and serves as a hub for nationwide bus and rail travel. “We’re gonna take it back and we’re gonna drive out the homelessness, we’re gonna drive out the crime,” Mr. Duffy told Fox News on Wednesday after announcing he would takeover management of the station from Amtrak. “This plan is going to make Union Station represent the president’s vision of what America can and should look like.”At the time the administration was expanding its control over the city, Ms. Bowser was trying to walk a fine line between not upsetting a president who has a great deal of power over her city and its resources and keeping happy her constituents, who overwhelmingly oppose the federal takeover of D.C.’s law enforcement. At a press conference Wednesday, Ms. Bowser said that she had spoken to Mr. Trump earlier in the day. “I was reminded that the president’s interest in cities predates his time in office and his knowledge of D.C. had significantly increased from the first time he was in the White House,” she said. “We knew that the priorities around safety and investment in infrastructure would be on the president’s mind.”“We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what MPD has been able to do in this city,” she said. “When carjackings go down, when use of guns go down, when homicide or robberies go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer.”The mayor was flanked by a chart at the press conference that listed things that were working — including additional officers — and things that were not working. The chart stated that having masked ICE agents conducting immigration enforcement operations and deploying National Guard soldiers from other states were contributing to a real sense of distrust between law enforcement and her city. “What’s not working is a break in trust between police and community, especially with new federal partners in our community. We know having masked ICE agents in the community has not worked,” she said. The mayor, who has been praised by Mr. Trump in the past as a competent leader, has been one of the only Democrats in the country to not forcefully speak out against the president’s direct control of Washington’s law enforcement assets and his deployment of additional resources. With some Republicans in Congress demanding that D.C.’s home-rule powers be rescinded, and $1 billion in city funding stuck in the congressional appropriations process, she is stuck working with the Republican trifecta. She was happy, though, on Wednesday to talk about Mr. Trump’s efforts to “beautify” the nation’s capital. The president told reporters on Friday that he is trying to get $2 billion from Congress to take care of things like rusting or deteriorating infrastructure and to improve the city’s parks. “This is an effort we take great pride in as city officials,” she told reporters Wednesday. “We will — though I don’t know much of the details — be supportive of the president’s $2 billion request to improve infrastructure, especially federal infrastructure, in the District.”

D.C. Mayor Walks Delicate Line With Trump, Praising President for Stopping Crime While Highlighting Challenges With Masked Officers

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