Trump Takes Charge of the Police in Washington, D.C. - Opinion: Potomac Watch

Wall Street Journal

5 days ago

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Speaker 1: From the Opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Kyle Peterson: President Trump declares a crime emergency in Washington, D.C., letting him take control of the city's police department for at least 30 days, while also activating about 800 troops from the D.C. National Guard to assist that mission despite objections from city leaders, including Mayor Muriel Bowser. Welcome, I'm Kyle Peterson with the Wall Street Journal. We're joined today by my colleagues on the editorial page, Faith Bottum and Collin Levy. Washington D.C. is a federal city as the nation's capital, but under the 1973 Home Rule Act, it largely governs its own affairs. That law gives the President of the United States, however, the power to take control of the city's police for up to 30 days, or longer if Congress assents, in the event of an emergency. President Trump declared such an emergency on Monday promising that he will, quote, "Rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor and worse," unquote. He has named Terry Cole, currently the head of the Drug Enforcement Agency, to oversee the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. Faith, you have an op-ed on this in the Journal's pages today under the headline, Can Trump Tame the Washington D.C. Streets? What do you make of this move by the president? It seems like part of what motivated him was high profile stories of people, including a former DOGE staffer getting attacked. And I'm an occasional visitor to D.C., it sure seems like Washington could be safer.
Faith Bottum: Yeah, the federalizing of D.C. Police is short term. It'll last about a month without congressional extension, but the protests that have already started and the democratic efforts to denounce the move have little to do with the actual crime in D.C. and everything to do with opposing Trump, whatever he does. One thing that has really stood out to me is that the D.C. Police Union chairman has come out in favor of Trump. He is saying crime is rampant in D.C. and that his officers are really going through it, and he's right, D.C. is short about 500 officers, one of the lowest staffing levels in decades. There was a protest last night about this. Someone was shot a couple blocks away last night from one of these protests. You're going to see more. All signs point to Trump being right, that D.C. is dangerous and unsafe.
Kyle Peterson: Part of the argument here has been the emergency declaration by President Trump. Let's listen to a clip of the President on Monday at the White House invoking this provision of the Home Rule Act that allows him to take control of the city's police.
Donald Trump: The murder rate in Washington today is higher than that of Bogota, Colombia, Mexico City, some of the places that you hear as being the worst places on Earth, much higher. This is much higher. The number of car thefts has doubled over the past five years and the number of carjackings has more than tripled. Murders in 2023 reached the highest rate probably ever. They say 25 years, but they don't know what that means because it just goes back 25 years. Can't be worse. Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged-out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not going to take it.
Kyle Peterson: And here is Washington D.C.'s Mayor Muriel Bowser responding to those claims painting a different picture of crime in the city during her own press conference on Monday.
Muriel Bowser: 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. 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.
Kyle Peterson: Collin, I think that's interesting because part of what's going on here is a debate about the actual conditions of the crime in Washington, D.C., and to some extent all of these stories can be true. Trump is citing some figures from a crime surge after COVID in 2023. That is a real thing that happened. The murder numbers in D.C. Hitting a high that year of 274. The mayor saying, "We've made progress since then. Crime has come down since then and we're now at a 30-year low." And yet, despite both of those things being true, a third thing can still be true, which is that there are arguments about what is the safest big city in the United States of America? And it is pretty clear that it's not Washington, D.C. It's a city where there is still a pretty elevated level of overall background crime, even despite the progress that the mayor is citing there.
Collin Levy: No question. I mean, look, you have to love Trump's colorful language here, it was the roving gangs of wild youth. I mean, I think there's some legitimate debate here over whether or not it's the crime in particular of this year in Washington D.C. that's making this unnecessary. I think there's reasonable debate over whether or not it's a crime emergency because of those relatively low numbers, but D.C. residents also know what the city feels like, and I think you'd be hard-pressed to find voters who say, "There's no crime problem here. The city feels great." There's something that's a little bit more amorphous, ephemeral, I think, that D.C. residents are very aware of. And I think we really have to look at here, Kyle, there's no question that Trump has the ability to do what he's done in D.C. because of the Home Rule Act. I mean, the Home Rule Act says that the powers of the local D.C. government are established over city affairs, but there's always been this kind of power-sharing and with the federal government because federal government, federal law enforcement still oversee property in the district. For a little review, in D.C., Congress delegates its powers to the city government. That means that D.C. residents can elect a mayor and they can elect city council members and so on, but there's still that oversight of budget and laws and this ultimate power over law enforcement that we're talking about here. All of these things, by the way, are the whole reason that there was originally a long-running push for statehood for Washington D.C., which was to get out from under that federal government and establish the kind of independent rights and sovereignty that you see in other states. And it also bears remembering that Home Rule lets the president take control of the D.C. Police Force under this Emergency Powers Act, which is what we're seeing here. And that, as Faith was saying earlier, that extends for 30 days. And then if Trump wants to continue it further, he'd have to get authorization from Congress. And he's in direct control of the D.C. National Guard, so it's not really the same as the situation would be if we were handling national guards with governors from other states.
Kyle Peterson: Hang tight, we'll be right back in a moment. Welcome back. Faith, it does put opponents of this move in kind of an awkward spot. I mean, they can argue that crime is going down, so Trump has no justification of declaring that now it is an emergency. On the other hand, it's a little difficult to say, "We don't have an emergency here because in 2024 there were only 187 murders in the District of Columbia and a mere 1,026 assaults with a dangerous weapon, just a measly 2,113 robberies." And to the point about the authority, it seems pretty clear, as Collin is saying, that Trump has the power to do what he has done. This was something that the Mayor Muriel Bowser told reporters. What I would point you to is the Home Rule Charter that gives the president the ability to determine the conditions of an emergency. She said, We could contest that, but the authority is pretty broad," unquote. And so, Faith, it seems like part of what's going on here is a debate for the public about whether this is an emergency that Trump can justify. On the other hand, like I said, I think people outside of D.C. and many of America's big cities would see crime numbers like that and think if this is not an emergency, then what would be?
Faith Bottum: Exactly. Trump was probably wrong when he said crime is the highest it's ever been, but crime is lower now. 2024 was a good year for D.C. crime. But good here is relative to a very awful statistical mean. As you said, 187 murders, there have been 300 carjackings. Washington should be one of the nation's best cities. People should be coming here for their architecture, tourism, art, and they're not. Why can't we have a beautiful and safe capital? Home Rule's a failed experiment. D.C. has been misruled for decades.
Kyle Peterson: Collin, Trump also talks about intervening in the policing of other places like Chicago. And what do you make of that? I mean, to my mind, that's a different story. D.C. is sort of unique in that it is set up as a federal enclave. It is the nation's capital. The ultimate authority in Washington D.C. is Congress and the President, and they have devolved some of that power. They've delegated some of that power by setting up creating this local D.C. City Council, but that does not mean that the D.C. Council is in charge. It means that they can do only what Congress and the President and the federal government have allowed them to do, only the powers that they have been granted. And so it's kind of a unique situation where it doesn't strike me as an abuse of power for the federal government to be exercising control of the federal district in the nation's capitol. Whereas Trump talks a big game about intervening in places like Chicago. But he would, I think, have pretty limited tools to do that, whatever he can maybe reach by federal law and federal law enforcement, but that only goes so far.
Collin Levy: No, that's true. Look, at the Monday press conference, Trump was throwing around some vague threats about how he's going to do the same thing to Chicago that he's doing in Washington. But to me, that seems really unlikely. And as you say, the balance of power is completely different. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said that Trump has no right and no legal ability to send troops into the City of Chicago because of a 1978 law that's known as Posse Comitatus, and that law prevents the federal government from using the military for local law enforcement. Posse Comitatus is actually specific to the Army and the Air Force, I believe. I think there's a different statute that covers the Navy, but the National Guard, on the other hand, if it's being directed by the federal government, is effectively a federalized police force, so the same principles apply, and we've seen some of those arguments already going on in California where there were the use of the National Guard in the immigration context. But I think one of the things that we have to be aware of though too, is that these blue states and blue cities, Chicago being the most obvious one, have created this just enormous opening for the Trump administration because there is so much poor governance, this progressive governance, that's really made it very difficult for the police, easier on criminals. And so it's sort of a temptation or certainly a good foil for the Trump administration to use Chicago and all of the mess that's going on there for people to look at the statistics and say, "Hey, everything's going wrong in these places." And now Donald Trump can ride in on his white horse and play the tough guy. And I think he thinks that that plays very well. I think it probably does play pretty well. Some of the statistics that you look at in Chicago, I think, are really telling and also get to this point that we were talking about regarding Washington and whether or not crime is people saying, "Oh, well look, crime is so much better now. It's not what it was." Chicago's crime rate has fallen too. And Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson's been out everywhere saying, "Hey, look, everything's working great here. And our crime rate's a lot lower than it has been, and this is proof of our success." But this is really a national situation where since the end of COVID and the George Floyd protests when things really peaked and everything was a horrible mess, things have definitely settled a bit since then. And I think that's great, that's important. We shouldn't diminish it, but it also doesn't necessarily represent a finger on the pulse of urban life because you still have other crimes like different kinds of burglaries, theft, vehicle theft have been up. I think auto theft actually last year was up around 75% in Chicago. So you have this tension. You've got Brandon Johnson out in Chicago recently vetoing the city council's plan to give the Chicago Police Department the power to declare snap curfews. That's something that police department wanted so that when they're dealing with these groups of teenagers, I think they call them teen takeovers, that flood certain areas and they act up and things get messy and violent, the police department would be able to disperse the crowds. Brandon Johnson said no. I mean, this is the kind of thing that just enrages residents and can really, again, be held up by the Trump administration as evidence that a city governor, and specifically city governance of law enforcement is really a failure.
Kyle Peterson: Hang tight. We'll be right back after one more break. Don't forget, you can reach the latest episode of Potomac Watch anytime. Just ask your smart speaker, "Play the Opinion Potomac Watch Podcast."
Speaker 1: From the Opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch.
Kyle Peterson: Welcome back. In Washington though, now I guess residents and the public can judge Trump on the results that he's able to get. He has this 30 days of federal control of the D.C. Police Department that can be extended by Congress if he can get Congress to do that. The National Guard deployment can be, I think, longer than that 30 days. But now he has promised that he is going to help clean up Washington, D.C. and we'll have to see what he can get done. But if he gets it done, I think residents will judge him on that and will thank police Commissioner Trump if there is falling crime now and cleaning up of some of the homeless encampments. And if there is not, then they can hold him accountable for that. Faith, on the broader point about Home Rule, which you're suggesting was a failed experiment, there's some noise in Congress who knows how serious it is, but Mike Lee, for example, Senator from Utah is talking about, "We should end home rule. We should turn D.C. back into a federal city that is controlled more directly by presidential appointees or maybe by Congress." What do you make of that idea as an alternative to this local city council that is kind of in a progressive spiral given the voter base that elects those people to the local political leadership?
Faith Bottum: Yeah. I think people forget just how democratic D.C. is. Donald Trump only won 7% of the vote in D.C. in 2024. My best guess is that repeal of Home Rule won't happen. I think Congress is too closely divided. I think pushing anything through Congress is just incredibly tough to do right now. I'd be really curious to see what Trump gets done in this time that he has. The beating up of this young kid is horrifying nationally. I mean, you see a young man getting surrounded and beaten up. He was the youngest, I think, person to be on DOGE at the beginning. There's a lot of momentum for this young man. Nationally, this is something that people want to see, and it's up to Trump to see what happens.
Kyle Peterson: Collin, going back to the point about D.C. being a federal city, again, I think it creates some strange juxtaposition when D.C. goes down the road of pursuing some of these progressive policies that are not uncommon in big cities. But for example, sanctuary city policies that are intended to thwart the enforcement of federal immigration law. D.C. is not an exception to having those kinds of policies, limitations on what information can be shared with immigration and customs enforcement about people that are in D.C. local lockups, for example, decriminalization of drugs that are federally illegal, including marijuana. D.C. decriminalized hallucinogenic mushrooms. And also, non-citizen voting is another one. I guess the point I'm trying to make is that it's not that we are expecting that D.C. is going to be governed in a Trump-like manner, given that only 7% of the people voted for Trump, but governed in a way that is not at odds with federal law and federal priorities and national priorities given this is the nation's capital. Collin, I think maybe those things are pretty good arguments that, as faith is laying out here, that this local control has become a failed experiment in Congress, ought to not let the nation's capital thumb its nose at federal immigration law that is written down the block from the D.C. Council building.
Collin Levy: Yeah. I mean, there's no question that some of these progressive policies in D.C. have been pretty egregious nose-thumbing at the federal government, as you say. I think that's right. I mean, I think I would probably make the argument that it's overall better for D.C. residents to be dealing with Home Rule with a local government and officials that a mayor can really deal with these specific issues involving the schools, involving other things that really are properly local issues. And I would make the argument, I don't think we really want the federal government, which is answerable to a much broader population making decisions about basic governance in Washington D.C. that I think is more properly left to the people that live there. But on this point in general, just getting back to what we were saying earlier, I think what we're really seeing with Donald Trump's action has a lot to do with the fact that it's August as well. He's a master of the news cycle, and I think he's primarily concerned here about using this quiet or relatively quiet August Doldrums to get off the subjects that he doesn't like, like Jeffrey Epstein, and to refocus national public attention on the law and order and tough crime part of his persona, which we know is very popular with the base and which was a big reason that people voted for him. I think that does go kind of hand in glove with the Trump administration's push on immigration, which was also an explicit part of his platform and embraced by people who were concerned about immigration contributing to crime and lawlessness. So is this action largely performative? It may be, but it's also, as we said earlier, certainly a function of this massive failure that we've seen in these progressive urban enclaves where the mayors have presented policies that have made city residents feel so much less safe.
Kyle Peterson: I understand that point about delegating local control about many city issues, and I can't imagine that the President or Congress would really have a lot of interest in getting involved in garbage collection and basic city services like that. But to push back a little, I mean, a couple of years ago, the D.C. City Council overrode Muriel veto to do updates to its criminal code, including reducing maximum penalties for carjacking and illegal gun possession. And because that happened during this 2023 crime wave, that got a lot of pushback, and what happened eventually was that Congress held a vote to override that and to revert the changes that the D.C. City Council wanted to make to the criminal penalties. There were dozens of Democrats who voted in favor of doing that, including one who was assaulted in her elevator building in Washington, D.C., Minnesota Congresswoman Angie Craig. And then President Biden ultimately signed that resolution, Faith, and did so angering some progressives who thought that this was a progressive criminal justice reform that was being pushed by the city council. So that's an example of where, again, D.C. is a federal city under the Constitution, and so congressional involvement in those kinds of decisions are not an abuse of power in the same way that Congress has no role at all in deciding the criminal codes of some of these other big cities in states that have their own sovereignty.
Faith Bottum: Yeah, I would say I would largely agree with that. I think the big question is what is this going to look like down the road? And to have anything substantial happen down the road, you need congressional approval. And that is just so hard to get nowadays. I mean, just to get anything through Congress. So that's my big hold up there.
Kyle Peterson: Thank you, Faith and Collin. Thank you all for listening and you can email us at [e-mail]. If you like the show, please hit that subscribe button and we'll be back tomorrow with another edition of Potomac Watch.