August 18, 2025 • 41 mins
DC resident Bridget Todd talks with Garrison about Trump’s police takeover in Washington DC, the manufacturing of crime panics, and how federal police are effecting the city.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
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Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is It could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. One
place that it is happening right now is Washington, d C.
Where Trump has undergone a quasi military takeover of the city.
And to discuss this, I'm joined by Bridget Todd, DC
resident here.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So I was on the podcast a few months ago
talking about Trump's history of threats to DC and that
has really all come to a head. So I'm really
happy to be sitting down with you to talk about it.
It has been a rough few days here in d C.
I mean, if I am coming off like I sound
tired or weird or stressed, it's because I do feel
(01:27):
those things. It's been a lot of feelings.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Most of it.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I just hate watching Donald Trump get up in front
of America and straight lie about my city and my home.
A place like DC that you know, it's where I'm from,
it's where it's met most of my life. It's it's
pretty difficult to have the national conversation be about what
a bombed out shithole my home is. So I sort
(01:49):
of wanted to get into the basics of what's going
on and what I think at all means for everyone,
not just people in DC. So by now you've probably
seen that. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that they
were federalizing DC's police force, the Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Department, or MPD.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
They also announced that they'd be sending National Guard to DC.
Because DC is not a state, Trump actually and any
president would actually have authority over DC's National Guard. So,
despite not being a state, DC does have a national Guard.
The authority over it is just in the hands of
the president, so with a stroke of a pen, he
can just deploy DC's National Guard whenever he wants. He's
(02:27):
also sending in national guard from other states to do this.
Trump evoked what's called Section seven forty of DC's Home
Rule Act, which allows for the president to take over
MPD for forty eight hours with possible extensions up to
thirty days in times of emergencies. I'm kind of putting
emergency in quotes because the emergency that he is saying
(02:47):
is crime. But we'll get into why that doesn't really
hold water in a moment. So I really can't overstate, like,
how on precedented this is? No president has ever done
this before?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, no, I what relates to your pain here of
your city suddenly being thrust into national spotlight? As Trump
sends in, you know, military style police and I guess
a version, although with very different methods justifications, happened to
my density Portland, Oregon in twenty twenty, which I'm sure
(03:21):
most people listening are familiar with. It's very similar reporting
on how it's burned to the ground. It is only
a husk remains. There's just one massive bonfire where downtown
used to be, and of course it's fine, but the
actual presence of you know, groups like PORTAC actually create
situations where there's massive amounts of violence being done by
(03:46):
men in army fatigues. What's in DC is is I
think notably different and as like a semi extension of
how he was testing out this type of thing in
LA earlier this year, but with less of like an
endpoint like LA's stuff was more about trying to push
forward these deportations and renditions as quickly as possible. So
(04:07):
he's just like taking control of the whole city, like indefinitely,
it seems now for DC.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
In some ways, yes, to be clear, because DC is
not a state, it is unique from any other place
in the country, and that the President kind of does
have more authority over DC than he would in other places.
And so yeah, he definitely this is definitely a federalization
of our police department. In terms of it being a
larger takeover of DC, We're not there yet. This is
(04:35):
something that he has definitely threatened. This is something that
he loves to talk about. That would include the president
taking over pretty much every aspect of life in DC,
so our public schools, our roads, our social services, all
of that provoking home rule, that's what that would be.
He definitely, that is definitely a threat. We should all
be very aware of that. And like it really makes
(04:57):
clear why DC needs full statehood yesterday, right, Like this
is an issue that should have been solved forever ago,
but right now we're talking about you know, specifically law
enforcement and the police, which on its own is is
like pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, that's always the first step. Like, as soon as
you take control of the enforcement mechanism, then no one
really is able to stop you from doing other things.
And that's why the first steps in all of these
like you know, weird weird like far right Silicon Valley
like plans for how they can fix quote unquote fix
the government. Being able to take total control over the
(05:33):
law enforcement apparatus is always the first step because then
you can kind of do whatever you want from there
and no one's going to stop you.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, in order to revoke home rule, it would take
an Act of Congress, which this Congress seems more than
willing to do whatever Trump wants.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So that's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, I think that for residents of DC, I think
the changes have been so stark in the last just
couple of forty eight hours that I think it's very
important to keep in mind what could be coming down
the pike and definitely be aware of it. But you know,
residents need to know what this means for them and
us today. And I think that, like it's is really
(06:10):
important to like highlight that. I think that because of
the nature of DC, it being the nation's capital, but
also where more than half a million people live, I
think it's really easy for people to forget that like
the experience of like people who live here, like me,
you know, And and I think it's in this moment
the people that I'm talking to on the ground really
are like focused on making sure that folks know what's
(06:32):
going on, have resources, you know, understand their rights, understand
that their rights have not changed just because of this.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Act this week.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And so I mean, the thing that I am emotionally
and personally struggling with is this smear of my city
being this like dangerous hell whole. How did you manage that?
What was the experience of going through that, like like
the dissonance of like your experience every day navigating the
streets of this place where you live, and then hearing
the national conversation about it be so different from how
(07:01):
you were experiencing it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I think eventually it is kind of became like a
point of pride and more like an absurd aspect which
keeps like unwanted tourism down. I don't think it really
in the end bothered people in the long run. And
the reason why people had a big problem with it
specifically was because of federal law enforcement who were taking
(07:25):
over blocks in the city.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That was the actual like like crux, Like Republicans constantly
talked about how, you know, insert any city here is
like falling apart, is overinden by crime, is you know,
a fallen state. You can't go out, and like they
just kind of pick a new one to put all
the attention on like once a week. So we're kind
of like used to this, to this rhetoric. It's it's
(07:49):
more so the actual like physical presence of law enforcement
and how that changes who were able to go throughout
the city and the presence of like militarized federal law enforcement.
That yeah, effects like just regular people. It's not just rhetoric.
It actually changes how you get to interact with your city.
And I guess that's the thing that actually caused people
in Portland to be much more upset, which results in
(08:11):
tens of thousands of people going out into the streets
and saying, no, we don't want you here. So, I
think more so than just like the rhetoric of how
X Y city is burned to the ground, it's more
so the like the actual physical daily life that produces
the actual tension within the city and how they get
(08:33):
changed and altered with federal law enforcement exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, that's pretty much what's happening on my streets
in DC. So about eight hundred and fifty officers and
agents took part in this what they called massive law
Enforcement Surge across DC, where they had between one hundred
and two hundred soldiers out patrolling the streets like beat
cops at any given time. And so, you know, some
of the things that we've seen in the last couple
(08:57):
of days, just simply as a longtime resident, like just
do not make sense, right, having federal agents patrol places
like Georgetown, which is very safe at ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That happened last night.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, Georgetown actually might be the most dangerous place in
the city.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Well in some ways, right if you're thinking about, like
the kind of crime they're talking tough about.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yes, yes, or like the National Mall at QWPM a weekday,
places where it's like it don't even make sense for
y'all to be posted up there. You know, there was
a big display of force and arrest on my block
just last night in the middle of the night, where
we looked out the window and it was.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Car after car after car. Border patrol.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
They set up the lights, they made arrests, and my
block is residential. So it's like places where it's like
it doesn't even seem to be making sense. And that's
why we know it's really not about crime. All of
the stuff that Trump said about crime and his pressor,
I mean, it was it was all just lies. Like
I guess, I don't you tell anybody listening to this,
but like in case you are here us whether or
(10:00):
not there's any credence to the fact, we're like, oh, well,
is crime going up in DC?
Speaker 4 (10:04):
That is not true?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Right, So violent crebs have been going down the past
two years in DC consistently.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It is true that DC did have a spike in
crime in twenty twenty three, but since then crime is
going down. If you watched that press conference, he threw
out a lot of stats about how crime is going
in the wrong direction by every measure, that's simply not true.
He said that in twenty twenty three, the murder rate
in DC reached the highest rate. This is him, He said,
probably ever going back twenty five years, but that they
(10:32):
don't know what that means because the data just only
goes back twenty five years, saying basically that they didn't
collect crime statistics way back then. Think about that for
a second. Twenty five years ago was the year two thousand.
Do you really think that crime data was not being
collected in the year two thousand?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It absolutely was.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
We absolutely know what crime in DC looked like in
the year two thousand and beyond. And so if there's
one thing people might know about DC is that in
the eighties and the nineties we were hit hard but
a crack epidemic. Crime was genuinely bare hi the city's
own crime statistics, which we did collect from the seventies,
eighties and nineties when the population in DC was smaller,
so that there was much more higher numbers of homicides
(11:10):
and murder.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So that's not just a lie.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's also a weird, obvious lie, and one that when
I watched the press or I almost didn't catch.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Wasn't until I sat that and went through the notes
and I was like, oh, this is not just a lie.
This is like a weird, glaring lie. I can't believe.
I like, I guess I say that to say there
are so many lies being thrown out in a short
amount of time. When they're all washing over you, it's
kind of hard to catch them one by one.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
But then when you actually sit down, you're like, wow,
this was just bullshit.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, that's the intention. That's to what Steve Beennen calls
like muzzle velocity. You have to shoot out these things constantly,
one after another, so that it's impossible to actually hone
in and quote unquote debunk each and every one because
by the time you're doing that, they've already moved on
to fifteen new things. You can never keep up with it.
And that's like the whole intention. That's like how they
(11:59):
craft litle like their sentences so that you can't just
like debunk everything they say because they just throw it
all out there, and it creates this massive structure that
even if you tried chipping away at the sides. It
doesn't actually make any effect and it doesn't matter at all.
And like, what's what's the real effect they're trying to
do here with sending in National Guard, federalizing the police.
(12:21):
It's to like scare black people, and it's to scare
homeless people. And that's really what they actually mean when
they say there's high crime. And I think DC is
what like the has like the third third largest black
population in the country.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
That's right, we formally called Chocolate City.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
We're more like a latte city today, but yeah, we
have a heavily black and brown population here.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's that's what Trump's actually like focusing on. That's
actually what he's doing. I feel like that's that should
be pretty clear to anyone who's like familiar with like
crime panic narratives and how they've been strategically deployed throughout
the past twenty five years and you know, thirty forty
years of the country.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean, I don't see how somebody could see
what's happening and see the way that he is clearly
like even at that press or the list of cities
he was planning on going to next Chicago, Baltimore. It's like, okay,
heavily black cities with black political leadership and black mayor.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Oh, Oakland, this is very clear. What's going on? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Interesting, interesting choice, buddy, Yeah, Like what do all.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
These places have in common? Right? One of the things
I've seen people.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Say is that this whole thing is about the attack
on the former DOGE staffer known as Big Balls.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Big Balls I think that's his technical term. Yes, possibly
to receive the Presidential Medal of I think freedom.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I think he got a medal. I think it happened.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
It's quite possible, so we should show big Balls some
respect for his struggles.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I mean it's I never thought I would se the
day where I'd be like reporting on story happening in
the city and talking about somebody named Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
But here we go.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Really, you did see this coven, You did see ekind of.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
My being go card care. For a podcast that I
host about local DC news and issues called Citycast DC,
I interviewed Mark C. Graves, who was like a long
time DC reporter, and I said, Oh, is there any
truth to the idea that this attack on Big Balls is? Like,
what was the impetus to all this that Elon Musk
was like, Trump, you need to federalize DC's police department
(14:27):
because of what happened to my former staffer. And I
understand why people where that narrative is coming from. But
he really pointed out something, which is that, you know,
Trump has been talking about taking over DC's police department
for a very long time. He referenced it during his
first administration a little bit a lot less than he
did it the second time around. He really dialed it
up in his second campaign. He began talking about it
(14:48):
even in his first few months in office by threatening
to take control over MPD if our Mayor Muriel Bowser
did not make certain concessions like clearing homeless encampments near
the White House and removing Black Lives Matter plot from
outside the White House. He also threatened to take over
MPD and DC in general when a former Trump administration staffer,
Mike gil was shot and killed during a carjacking in
(15:09):
DC back in February. So when that happened again, he
was like, I'm taking over MPD, I'm taking over empty
So well, the Big Balls.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Thing, alleged carjacking of Big Balls, I will say this.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You know those stories where you're like, we're gonna get
more information about this, so it's best to just wait.
I have a I don't know anything. I don't have
any special details, but like my senses, this is one
of those situations where it's like, you know, first the
story was I was with a girlfriend in her car
and we were carjacked by two unarmed teens. Then Elon Musk,
(15:41):
super spreader of misinformation that he is, was like, oh,
he was attacked while trying to rescue an elderly woman. Like,
I just have seen enough about crime and DC I am.
I'm looking forward to hearing more information about what actually
went down there.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
I'll just put it that way if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
With mister big Balls, with mister big Ball, I guess
mister Balls, I guess big is the first mister Balls.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Please, mister Balls is my father. So yeah, Like, I
think the.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Big Balls thing might have been very convenient timing or
like a good excuse to actually move forward. But I
think narratives that big Balls got attacked and now Trump
is taking over MPD. Yeah, I think that like doesn't
really tell the whole story, which is that this has been.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
A long time coming.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
This has been something that Trump has been like obsessed
with for quite some time, even going back from before
his second administration.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And there's there's been like a media campaign in the
past few months of specifically taking like public transit robbery
videos and making them super viral of like teens who
will like steal like designer clothes on public transit, yeah,
and turning turning this into like a national epidemic. And
again you can look at look at the like the
shoplifting videos from a few years ago that even though
(16:52):
crime was going down, there was videos that very visible
videos of shoplifting that went super viral to help form
this this crime wave narrative that the statistics don't necessarily support,
to the point where you have Republicans actually like denying
the FBI's own crime statistics. F the FBI famously soft
on crime institution, the FBI, but Republicans saying that these
(17:16):
debts have to be wrong because we all know that
there's crime everywhere, and like, how do we know that
because you're seeing like a TikTok video about it and
that's your proof. As you've seen you saw one or
two videos of like people robbing an Apple store and
now you think that crime must be statistically higher everywhere, Okay, yeah,
And I.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Think that's why the Big Ball's narrative continues to really
be so sticky.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Ooh, I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I don't mean it how it sounds, but like,
it doesn't matter if you have statistics from the FBI
saying that crime is going down whatever whatever, when you
if you have a visceral image of like a bloodied
Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Beaten on the street, right like, And so I think that.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's it's really interesting how and I guess I'll just
say it, how easily manipulated people are, oh yeah, and
how they're able to go against the facts when they
are confronted with an image of like teens robbing a
CVS or like oh like yeah, like elluded out CBS
totally because that is so visceral. And so that's something
I've really struggled with, is like I don't know how
(18:17):
to counter these emotionally charged, visceral TikTok videos and images
that present one thing with facts, like it's like very
difficult to be like, well, the data says this when
people are being motivated by a different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No, And that's why it's almost kind of fruitless to
go about that strategy at this point, and like, I
don't know how to approach this, and I think it's
also worth mentioning, like you're we are not immune to
this either. We might get targeted with like different narratives.
Maybe maybe a CVS robbery doesn't do it for us,
but no, like everyone's motivated by like emotional reactions to
things that we see as like bad or often horrific,
(18:51):
and that that does change the way that we understand
like the physical aspects, like the like the statistical patterns
of the world very clearly, Like we're we're emotional creatures.
That's what drives us. The fact that the emotional plight
of Big Balls is driving the ruling party in the
country right now is just a little bit more notable
because it's one white guy named Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
And it almost doesn't even make sense to like come
back the idea that this is about crime. But I
know it's not about crime because one, the Trump administration
recently made very drastic cuts to d C security funding,
and so if he was really very invested in crime
and DC seems like something that his administration would not
have done. Also, something that our mayor, who I do
(19:36):
want to talk about, has said is that, as you
were sort of alluding to earlier, federal agents and military
personnel are not the people who are going to be
useful when it comes to DC like street crime. These
are people who probably aren't even informed about DC's local
ordinances and laws. Why would they be right, and so
these are not people whose jobs it is to be
(19:58):
out engaging with some millions about quality of life crimes
like open containers or drinking on sidewalks. I saw a
pretty viral video of the police going up and stopping
somebody for he says, smoking a joint on his porch.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
In DC, you are allowed to possess marijuana.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
But he also was like, just so you know, Trump
is cracking down on all of these quality of life crimes.
So you can't drink a beer on your portion anymore.
That's incorrect in the district of club, but you absolutely
can drink alcohol on your private property outside. And it's like, well,
how would he know. He's not even from here. He's
a federal agent, So like, yeah, these are not people
who are trained or skilled in combating the kind of
(20:37):
civilian level street crime that we're seeing them do.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
This is just not an appropriate use of these people.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And so the thing that kind of gets me is
that for the amount of money that we are spending
on having federal agents deal with low level street crime
like per MPD and per the DOJ's own statistics, the
kind of crimes that they are been combating this week
are things like open contained a fair evasions. It was like, yeah,
you need you need an FBI agent to deal with this,
(21:04):
what are you talking about? But the money that we're spending,
we probably could house every single unhoused person in the
district of Columbia with the money that we are spending
on this nonsense. It's like, that's the thing that makes
me so angry. I don't want to live in a
city that's full of crime. Luckily I don't because crime
is going down. But if you genuinely wanted to combat crime,
there is a reasonable way to do this. And this
(21:26):
is just a big show of force to freak everybody
out and basically demonstrate that Trump can go into cities
and do this.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It's not actually about lowering crime. The reason why they
would never want to house peoples because they don't actually
want to. They don't want homeless people to live good lives.
They want to exercise power. That's the primary motivator. And
not only can bringing an out of state police be
like inconvenient, it can have lethal consequences, right because they
do not know the areas that they're policing, They do
not know the people in those areas. They don't understand
(21:56):
what it's actually like. When I was at the Republican
National Conference Committee, I don't know how do how do
I not know what the RNC is convention?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
It depends on if you're talking about the event or
the like entity the entity.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
When I was at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin last year, I responded to the scene of a
police shooting where police from out of state who were
brought in for the convention, we're policing outside of the
area the convention and shot and killed a homeless black
man because they did not understand where the homeless people
(22:34):
have their encampments, how they solve disputes, how people can
get into fights. But that does not mean like you
have to kill people who are having a fight. So no,
this has drastic consequences. Something that the police Milwaukee would
would have been aware of this encampment, would have possibly
been aware of the normal way that homeless people can
get in two fights with each other but are not
(22:55):
going to kill each other. Instead, you have an out
of state cap from like oh I or something get
freaked out that two people are fighting and then shoot
one of them and stuff like. This is why out
of state police are so dangerous when they're being brought
into communities that they really just don't understand exactly that.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I did an interview with a local community organizer in
DC and they told me pretty much the same thing,
that there is an aspect of trust and relationship building
that goes into not just like solving crimes, but combating
crimes before they start, right, Like, there is a level
of deep relationship building and trust building that has to
be in effect there and that is what actually can
(23:37):
sometimes make communities safer. When it comes to unhoused people
and immigrants, these are not people who are committing crimes.
These are people who are statistically more likely to be
the victims of crimes. And so when you bring in
outside forces who do not have trust, who who have
not built that relationship, and they're terrorizing the communities that
are statistically more likely to be the victims of crime.
(23:57):
That's going to be the thing that results in the
opposite up crime going down, right, because you are damaging
whatever trust and whatever relationship and whatever understandings have been
built with this community and law enforcement going forward. Right,
And so if we're genuinely interested in buildings are for communities,
bringing in all of these outside military and federal personnel
(24:17):
is simply not how you do it.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
That's how I know it's bullshit.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
They don't actually care about any of this, and like
it is, it is sort of crazy making because I
feel like they want us spinning out about all of
this stuff, all of this bullshit that they're spinning, which
fucking guiltiest charge for me this week is all I've
been doing. But you know, it's just it's this. They're
so effective at the spin and the manipulation.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, I'm one of the former Fox News hosts who
somehow has a position in government.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Heeg seth.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, it was another one. No, No, there is another.
This is which one? It was one of the ones
who looks like your evil aunt. Oh uh Dinian Pierro Yes,
Oh my god, I'm glad that we could figure that
out based on that description.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That's that's all you had to say.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But she was specifically asked, like, what are you going
to do to address the root cause of crime? And
she says, we don't want to. We're not going to.
That's not what we're actually focusing on. We're focusing on
just like eliminating crime, Yeah, through like force, through intimidation,
and not even actually eliminating crime, just just just exercising power,
which is what they're actually trying to say. And that's
(25:24):
that's the whole point of this.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yes, and it's not just crime written large through force.
It is crime in cities that are run by democrats
that are heavily black and brown populations. Because yeah, you
don't see them going into white communities that have crime,
which white communities do have crime.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
You don't see them going into.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Cities where they have Republican mayors where crime is also
quite bad. No, that's not even that's not even like
part of the conversation. It is very clear what they
are saying. This is an attack.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
It's about power.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, this is a show of power to communities that
we don't like. And I have to say something about this,
which is that you know, when this first happened, when
I was interviewing that longtime reporter Mark Seagraves, something that
he told me that really scared me was that the
administration is doing this entirely legally and by the book.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
He was like, Oh, it's clear that they are.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Following every letter of the law, to the point where
the first statement out of our mayor's office was that
they were not challenging this takeover of MPD. Yeah, because
they did not feel like they had any kind of
legal grounds to do so, which is grim. That really
tells me that they have got their act together. There
was a time where people were like, Oh, they're just
going to do things and see what sticks and see
what you know, see what gets challenged and court, see
(26:34):
what they can get away with. It really tells me
a lot that in this instance, they're like, we're doing
this by the book, so that there is no legal
challenge to what we are doing.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
What has the reaction been like from like city government?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Ugh, I mean, I will say I came on this
podcast a while ago and I would say, like, I
don't want to say I defended our mayor Muriel Bowser,
but I did want to say like she is in
a position that no other elected official in the country
is in where she has to sort of play nice
with a madman. I play on the show, and I
said that she had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions, which,
(27:21):
you know, say what you would about it, I believe
was grounded in an attempt to like.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Work with Trump to avoid worse outcomes.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
To avoid this from happening, to avoid this from happening.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
So my point is now, I mean, it really shows
you the futality of trying to make concessions with a fascist, Right.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
What's the point.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, because the thing that we were trying to avoid,
the thing that all of these little appeasements and concessions.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Were meant to avoid, has happened. To be clear, Trump
has not.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Taken over DC entirely, and home rules still stands, and
so the very worst outcome has not happened yet. But
this is pretty damn bad, and so part of me
is like, what did all those concessions get you? And day,
just this morning, she has totally flipped her tune on this.
She actually flew to mar A Lago to see Trump
yesterday and she came back saying, well, maybe having more
(28:09):
law enforcement in communities in DC will make people safer.
And I just cannot express to you how much it
feels like I would speak for myself, it feels like
we have been abandoned by leadership when we need it most.
Right in DC, we have the mayor Mariel Bowser, who
I just told you about. We have a congressional representative,
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has a long time a history
(28:31):
of being a fighter and protector of DC's autonomy. However,
she can't vote, so she doesn't really have a lot
of power, and a big conversation in DC has been
the fact that she is really aging. She is, like
I think, the second oldest member of Congress in the
United States, and it just we don't feel like we
have anybody who can fight for us, who can speak
(28:51):
up for us. And I will say this, like, I'm
very disappointed in our mayor. I'm very disappointed in the
fact that she has seems to have really been behind.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Trump on this.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
She does have a not terrible relationship with Trump, which
in some ways can be good or bad depending on
how you look at it. But I went into this
having a sense that, oh well, I think our mayor
is going to fight for us, our mayor is going
to fight for DC's autonomy. And I'm coming out of
it thinking, I don't think that she is fighting for
us like the way that I would want her to
be positioning herself in this moment, I'm not seeing her do.
(29:21):
And the reality is, unfortunately the mayor of DC doesn't
really have a lot of power and protection. She does
when you when you compare that to somebody like Gavin Newsom,
who when Trump sent the National Guard into LA knows
that he has like the power of two senators behind him, right,
Like our mayor doesn't have that.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
And it just really made clear when it comes to
protecting DC.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
We're really on our own. We're really all we have.
We don't really have a lot of power. We are
really depending on folks like you care to get the
word out the people who do have elected officials that
they can call and advocate, because.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Like there's really nobody to call.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
And I will say I will say this, if the
worst thing happens and DC's home rule is overturned, which
would be a disaster, Like I should come back on
the show and talk about what that would look like.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
If that happens, DC will have no one.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
The only people who will be in charge of how
DC is run is Trump and a small handful of
people that he would personally appoint to be the commissioner
of DC.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
So the last time that DC did.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Not have home rule, it was the only people who
were in charge were the President and I think it
was three commissioners that he personally appointed. None of these
people lived in DC other than the President who lived
in the White House. And so down to the smallest
aspect of city life, I'm talking about social services, DC,
health like unemployment, the streets, the schools, all of that
would be run by President Trump. I cannot express to
(30:48):
you what a disaster this would be. And the smallest
thing getting done in DC, down to a pothole being repaved,
would take congressional oversight.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
So anybody who thinks that.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
That is a a reasonable way to run a city,
oh my god, wake up.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well, I am not thrilled about the idea of commissioner
big balls, because that would happen. You know that, I know.
And it's funny you mentioned Newsome, and Newsom was another
guy who was trying to make concessions with Trump, specifically
around like trans sports.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Oh my god, don't even get me started.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And he tried to, you know, make make those sort
of like concessions and like roll back some aspects of
supporting trans people in schools and trans kids, and then
Trump's Department of Education still went after California schools, so like, yeah,
no matter what concessions you give, they will still go
after you. Earlier, you mentioned there was like a rest
on your block last night, Like how how is this
affected daily life for you and other are the residents
(31:43):
of like DC?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
So far it has been grim.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, we've seen Border Patrol, EDA, FBI National Guard
just walking the streets. And again, like something about DC
is that in August pretty much everybody leaves towns.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
What's a bit of a ghost town?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
There is nothing that justifies the massive disruption in city
services that has happened. On my street last night they
had a row of Border Patrol SUVs blocking traffic for
genuinely no reason. Like the level to which to say
are they are purposely disrupting the flow of city life
(32:21):
cannot be overstated. And you know, I want to make
it clear also, this is, as you said, a real
attack on the unhoused community in DC. We have already
seen very disturbing images of unhoused people being taken away
by police yesterday in the White House at that they
were going to be forcibly removing unhoused people, forcing them
into shelters, hospitals, or jails, and if they didn't go,
they would face fines. I mean finding somebody who was
(32:44):
living on the street, Like, what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, finding someone who has no money? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
And DC has a long history of having an issue
with the unhoused community. We do not have enough shelters
to accommodate people, and even if we did not, everybody's
gonna want to go to a shelter. So this has
been an issue long before Trump was ever in DC,
and it does take some complexity and thoughtfulness to solve it.
Not just going in and removing people by brute force,
(33:10):
Like that is the absolute worst.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Thing that you can be doing for this.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No, I mean that that relates to Trump's like anti
Vagrancy executive Order from a few weeks ago, where he
wants to lock homeless people up in like mental hospitals
and jails and like like like forcibly so and like
change change the rules for how how shelters work, how
shelters can get funding mandatory like drug treatments, and yeah,
(33:35):
really actually just trying to like involuntarily commit people into
civil institutions exactly. I see parts of what he's doing
in DC is trying to demonstrate his like plan for
that and how he wants that to spread across the
country and just yeah, taking people off the street but
then locking them either in a jail or onto like
(33:57):
a hospital bed.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yes, and there was also an ice raid at the
home depot out in Northeast this week. Basically, I do
think that first and foremost this is an attack on
DC's black, brown, immigrant, and unhoused community. But you know,
I've seen images of empty bars and empty restaurants where
ice and border patrol are are inside the place.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, why would you want to go out? So if
there's the fucking like the military grading around.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yes, it's fucking up the vibes right, Like that's I
will say. Like so in addition to.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
The attacks on these vulnerable communities, like, if you want
to have a community where people feel safe to go out,
they want to spend money, they want.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
To like enjoy the city, the vibes are terrible.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
This is this is just everything that makes DC great
and a good place to live in a place that
people want to come and spend time and and and
start their families. This kind of show of force goes
against that and threatens that. It really does threat like
DC is a particular place. It's like why this is
my home? This kind of stuff really threatens our way
of life in ways that are just in is just sad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I'm not sure if you have like examples like what
people are trying to do to cope with this or
try to like like stand their ground in their community.
I guess, but like how are people like channeling their
frustration right now?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, there was a very viral video of somebody throwing
a sub sandwich at a military personnel on U Street.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So well that's a start. As long as we if
we can get fifty thousand people with sub sandwiches, we
might be onto something hero DC needs. So that's one
literally the hero DC needs. Yeah, I see.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
What you did there, Yeah, I would say, so there
are I feel grateful that there are organizations in DC,
like local organizations that we're preparing for this and so
organizations like Free DC. I spoke to one of their
representatives earlier this week about what they're doing, and they're
really focused on giving residents resources, and so they're running
cop watching trainings.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
That's good. They're making sure that.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Folks know that their rights have not changed, know their
rights if an agent comes up to you to talk
to you. They're making sure people know what they do
and don't have to say in those situations, which I
think is important.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
People should definitely check out Free DC.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
They've been around since the sixties or they have been
protecting DC's autonomy for a very long time. One of
the things that they were telling folks to do was
do you remember how in twenty twenty people would go
outside and bang pots and pants to thank essential workers
and medical personnel.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
They were telling folks, because.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
The streets feel so militarized, not everybody's gonna feel like
going out to a protest or going out to a
march at eight o'clock at night. Make as much noise
as you can, whether it's from your open window or
from your block, or from your stoop, as a way
to demonstrate opposition to this. And so if you want
more information about the kinds of that kind of organizing
that they're trying to provide for folks.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Definitely check out Free DC. But I do think I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
The vibes are rage, and I hate that that rage
feels so impotent that we that like this is just
a another a million examples of why we need full
state that we've needed it for so long, because we
are being disenfranchised. We have the possibility that people in
power in DC could be people that nobody elected. Trump
(37:12):
could appoint anybody as Commissioner of DC and yeah, it
could be big balls, right, And so we are in
a situation that is so grim and.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I think that shows you know, people, people are really
feeling that.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
And I guess one thing I want to I want
to add is that I was talking earlier about how
it's frustrating that I find that I'm often in this
conversation like trying to combat Trump, and I feel I
feel like I'm in a a stance that I hate,
which is this reactive stance where pace uws bullshit and
I feel like it's my job to debunk it, and
it's like, well it's a bullshit.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I could be doing other things. I hate that.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
We have gotten this narrative that cities are bad, and
that goes against our shared understanding of this country where
cities are good. If you live in a city, don't
let Trump turn you against city life. Don't let Trump
turn you against cities. People want to be in cities.
Cities are good, cities are safe, cities are cool to live,
and people want to be in the city. If people
(38:08):
didn't want to live in DC, my rent wouldn't be
so goddamn high. Right, people want to be here for
a reason. When Trump got up on that presser and
talked about how tourists come to DC this and that
he's right, if DC were truly a bombed out hell hole,
taurus wouldn't want to bring their families here. Cities are good,
and I don't think that we should let Trump rewrite
the narrative that our cities are bad.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Cities are good, They are good places to be.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
We don't have to get caught up in his fake,
bullshit narrative of demonizing cities.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So that's why I think everyone should travel to d C.
Let's all go to the Capitol, put on some put
on some masks, wave some flags, and just get in
there to show could we could take it over. We
could take the city back Joe Biden twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I mean I did see this interview on News Nation
where I think it was Medi Hassan was talking to
some shithead and he was like, Oh, if Trump cares
about crime so much, why did he pardon a bunch
of January sixth attackers who threatened and attacked law enforcement?
Speaker 4 (39:06):
And it's like, oh, he would.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
The interviewer was just like, oh, come on, come on,
you want to talk about that, come.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
On, And it's like, Okay, I thought tough on crime. Huh,
tough on crime.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, No, it's it's it's crime with three ellipses, not
the actual category of crime exactly, crime wink wink.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Yeah, it's like, we know.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
What they're what they're trying to say. But honestly, just
talking to you about this has made me feel a
lot better. I've been raging all week, so this is
the first time that I feel like I've actually like
gotten it all out.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So thank you for talking to me about it.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, No, we will. We will certainly keep up with
what's happening in DC with you know, how long National
Guard's going to be there, how long this this federalization lasts.
Maybe they'll eliminate all crime within thirty days and things
will go back to normal. Who knows.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I mean the.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Day that he took over, there was olver there was
a shooting like an hour or two later, So I
was like, oh, that's all We're gonna handle this?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Well, I guess not, but no, we will keep up
with this as well as Trump's promise is to go
further and expand to five other cities. So thank you
for sharing your thoughts and experiences as a resident of DC.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Bridget, Thank you for having me, And yeah, like, if
you're out there in DC, stay safe, keep hope alive.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
We're all we got.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Where else can people find you on the internet? Bridget?
Besides you know, on the on the steps of the
Capitol waving an American flag, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
In a mask. Yeah. You can find me at my podcasts.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I have a podcast on iHeartRadio called there Are No
Girls on the Internet. I have a podcast about local
DC news and issues called Citycast DC. You can also
find me on Instagram at bridget rain d C, on
TikTok at bridget rain DC, or on YouTube and there
Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Cheers.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
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Speaker 2 (00:46):
This is It could Happen Here. I'm Garrison Davis. One
place that it is happening right now is Washington, d C.
Where Trump has undergone a quasi military takeover of the city.
And to discuss this, I'm joined by Bridget Todd, DC
resident here.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
So I was on the podcast a few months ago
talking about Trump's history of threats to DC and that
has really all come to a head. So I'm really
happy to be sitting down with you to talk about it.
It has been a rough few days here in d C.
I mean, if I am coming off like I sound
tired or weird or stressed, it's because I do feel
(01:27):
those things. It's been a lot of feelings.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
Most of it.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
I just hate watching Donald Trump get up in front
of America and straight lie about my city and my home.
A place like DC that you know, it's where I'm from,
it's where it's met most of my life. It's it's
pretty difficult to have the national conversation be about what
a bombed out shithole my home is. So I sort
(01:49):
of wanted to get into the basics of what's going
on and what I think at all means for everyone,
not just people in DC. So by now you've probably
seen that. On Monday, the Trump administration announced that they
were federalizing DC's police force, the Metropolitan Police.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Department, or MPD.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
They also announced that they'd be sending National Guard to DC.
Because DC is not a state, Trump actually and any
president would actually have authority over DC's National Guard. So,
despite not being a state, DC does have a national Guard.
The authority over it is just in the hands of
the president, so with a stroke of a pen, he
can just deploy DC's National Guard whenever he wants. He's
(02:27):
also sending in national guard from other states to do this.
Trump evoked what's called Section seven forty of DC's Home
Rule Act, which allows for the president to take over
MPD for forty eight hours with possible extensions up to
thirty days in times of emergencies. I'm kind of putting
emergency in quotes because the emergency that he is saying
(02:47):
is crime. But we'll get into why that doesn't really
hold water in a moment. So I really can't overstate, like,
how on precedented this is? No president has ever done
this before?
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Yeah, no, I what relates to your pain here of
your city suddenly being thrust into national spotlight? As Trump
sends in, you know, military style police and I guess
a version, although with very different methods justifications, happened to
my density Portland, Oregon in twenty twenty, which I'm sure
(03:21):
most people listening are familiar with. It's very similar reporting
on how it's burned to the ground. It is only
a husk remains. There's just one massive bonfire where downtown
used to be, and of course it's fine, but the
actual presence of you know, groups like PORTAC actually create
situations where there's massive amounts of violence being done by
(03:46):
men in army fatigues. What's in DC is is I
think notably different and as like a semi extension of
how he was testing out this type of thing in
LA earlier this year, but with less of like an
endpoint like LA's stuff was more about trying to push
forward these deportations and renditions as quickly as possible. So
(04:07):
he's just like taking control of the whole city, like indefinitely,
it seems now for DC.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
In some ways, yes, to be clear, because DC is
not a state, it is unique from any other place
in the country, and that the President kind of does
have more authority over DC than he would in other places.
And so yeah, he definitely this is definitely a federalization
of our police department. In terms of it being a
larger takeover of DC, We're not there yet. This is
(04:35):
something that he has definitely threatened. This is something that
he loves to talk about. That would include the president
taking over pretty much every aspect of life in DC,
so our public schools, our roads, our social services, all
of that provoking home rule, that's what that would be.
He definitely, that is definitely a threat. We should all
be very aware of that. And like it really makes
(04:57):
clear why DC needs full statehood yesterday, right, Like this
is an issue that should have been solved forever ago,
but right now we're talking about you know, specifically law
enforcement and the police, which on its own is is
like pretty bad.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
No, that's always the first step. Like, as soon as
you take control of the enforcement mechanism, then no one
really is able to stop you from doing other things.
And that's why the first steps in all of these
like you know, weird weird like far right Silicon Valley
like plans for how they can fix quote unquote fix
the government. Being able to take total control over the
(05:33):
law enforcement apparatus is always the first step because then
you can kind of do whatever you want from there
and no one's going to stop you.
Speaker 3 (05:40):
Yeah, in order to revoke home rule, it would take
an Act of Congress, which this Congress seems more than
willing to do whatever Trump wants.
Speaker 4 (05:47):
So that's something to keep in mind.
Speaker 3 (05:48):
Yeah, I think that for residents of DC, I think
the changes have been so stark in the last just
couple of forty eight hours that I think it's very
important to keep in mind what could be coming down
the pike and definitely be aware of it. But you know,
residents need to know what this means for them and
us today. And I think that, like it's is really
(06:10):
important to like highlight that. I think that because of
the nature of DC, it being the nation's capital, but
also where more than half a million people live, I
think it's really easy for people to forget that like
the experience of like people who live here, like me,
you know, And and I think it's in this moment
the people that I'm talking to on the ground really
are like focused on making sure that folks know what's
(06:32):
going on, have resources, you know, understand their rights, understand
that their rights have not changed just because of this.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Act this week.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
And so I mean, the thing that I am emotionally
and personally struggling with is this smear of my city
being this like dangerous hell whole. How did you manage that?
What was the experience of going through that, like like
the dissonance of like your experience every day navigating the
streets of this place where you live, and then hearing
the national conversation about it be so different from how
(07:01):
you were experiencing it.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
I think eventually it is kind of became like a
point of pride and more like an absurd aspect which
keeps like unwanted tourism down. I don't think it really
in the end bothered people in the long run. And
the reason why people had a big problem with it
specifically was because of federal law enforcement who were taking
(07:25):
over blocks in the city.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like that.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
That was the actual like like crux, Like Republicans constantly
talked about how, you know, insert any city here is
like falling apart, is overinden by crime, is you know,
a fallen state. You can't go out, and like they
just kind of pick a new one to put all
the attention on like once a week. So we're kind
of like used to this, to this rhetoric. It's it's
(07:49):
more so the actual like physical presence of law enforcement
and how that changes who were able to go throughout
the city and the presence of like militarized federal law enforcement.
That yeah, effects like just regular people. It's not just rhetoric.
It actually changes how you get to interact with your city.
And I guess that's the thing that actually caused people
in Portland to be much more upset, which results in
(08:11):
tens of thousands of people going out into the streets
and saying, no, we don't want you here. So, I
think more so than just like the rhetoric of how
X Y city is burned to the ground, it's more
so the like the actual physical daily life that produces
the actual tension within the city and how they get
(08:33):
changed and altered with federal law enforcement exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
I mean, that's pretty much what's happening on my streets
in DC. So about eight hundred and fifty officers and
agents took part in this what they called massive law
Enforcement Surge across DC, where they had between one hundred
and two hundred soldiers out patrolling the streets like beat
cops at any given time. And so, you know, some
of the things that we've seen in the last couple
(08:57):
of days, just simply as a longtime resident, like just
do not make sense, right, having federal agents patrol places
like Georgetown, which is very safe at ten o'clock at night.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That happened last night.
Speaker 2 (09:07):
Well, Georgetown actually might be the most dangerous place in
the city.
Speaker 4 (09:11):
Well in some ways, right if you're thinking about, like
the kind of crime they're talking tough about.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Yes, yes, or like the National Mall at QWPM a weekday,
places where it's like it don't even make sense for
y'all to be posted up there. You know, there was
a big display of force and arrest on my block
just last night in the middle of the night, where
we looked out the window and it was.
Speaker 4 (09:36):
Car after car after car. Border patrol.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
They set up the lights, they made arrests, and my
block is residential. So it's like places where it's like
it doesn't even seem to be making sense. And that's
why we know it's really not about crime. All of
the stuff that Trump said about crime and his pressor,
I mean, it was it was all just lies. Like
I guess, I don't you tell anybody listening to this,
but like in case you are here us whether or
(10:00):
not there's any credence to the fact, we're like, oh, well,
is crime going up in DC?
Speaker 4 (10:04):
That is not true?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
Right, So violent crebs have been going down the past
two years in DC consistently.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
Absolutely so.
Speaker 3 (10:10):
It is true that DC did have a spike in
crime in twenty twenty three, but since then crime is
going down. If you watched that press conference, he threw
out a lot of stats about how crime is going
in the wrong direction by every measure, that's simply not true.
He said that in twenty twenty three, the murder rate
in DC reached the highest rate. This is him, He said,
probably ever going back twenty five years, but that they
(10:32):
don't know what that means because the data just only
goes back twenty five years, saying basically that they didn't
collect crime statistics way back then. Think about that for
a second. Twenty five years ago was the year two thousand.
Do you really think that crime data was not being
collected in the year two thousand?
Speaker 4 (10:48):
It absolutely was.
Speaker 3 (10:49):
We absolutely know what crime in DC looked like in
the year two thousand and beyond. And so if there's
one thing people might know about DC is that in
the eighties and the nineties we were hit hard but
a crack epidemic. Crime was genuinely bare hi the city's
own crime statistics, which we did collect from the seventies,
eighties and nineties when the population in DC was smaller,
so that there was much more higher numbers of homicides
(11:10):
and murder.
Speaker 4 (11:11):
So that's not just a lie.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
It's also a weird, obvious lie, and one that when
I watched the press or I almost didn't catch.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
It.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
Wasn't until I sat that and went through the notes
and I was like, oh, this is not just a lie.
This is like a weird, glaring lie. I can't believe.
I like, I guess I say that to say there
are so many lies being thrown out in a short
amount of time. When they're all washing over you, it's
kind of hard to catch them one by one.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
But then when you actually sit down, you're like, wow,
this was just bullshit.
Speaker 2 (11:39):
Yeah, that's the intention. That's to what Steve Beennen calls
like muzzle velocity. You have to shoot out these things constantly,
one after another, so that it's impossible to actually hone
in and quote unquote debunk each and every one because
by the time you're doing that, they've already moved on
to fifteen new things. You can never keep up with it.
And that's like the whole intention. That's like how they
(11:59):
craft litle like their sentences so that you can't just
like debunk everything they say because they just throw it
all out there, and it creates this massive structure that
even if you tried chipping away at the sides. It
doesn't actually make any effect and it doesn't matter at all.
And like, what's what's the real effect they're trying to
do here with sending in National Guard, federalizing the police.
(12:21):
It's to like scare black people, and it's to scare
homeless people. And that's really what they actually mean when
they say there's high crime. And I think DC is
what like the has like the third third largest black
population in the country.
Speaker 4 (12:32):
That's right, we formally called Chocolate City.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
We're more like a latte city today, but yeah, we
have a heavily black and brown population here.
Speaker 2 (12:40):
Yeah, that's that's what Trump's actually like focusing on. That's
actually what he's doing. I feel like that's that should
be pretty clear to anyone who's like familiar with like
crime panic narratives and how they've been strategically deployed throughout
the past twenty five years and you know, thirty forty
years of the country.
Speaker 3 (12:56):
Yeah, I mean, I don't see how somebody could see
what's happening and see the way that he is clearly
like even at that press or the list of cities
he was planning on going to next Chicago, Baltimore. It's like, okay,
heavily black cities with black political leadership and black mayor.
Speaker 4 (13:11):
Oh, Oakland, this is very clear. What's going on? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Interesting, interesting choice, buddy, Yeah, Like what do all.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
These places have in common? Right? One of the things
I've seen people.
Speaker 3 (13:29):
Say is that this whole thing is about the attack
on the former DOGE staffer known as Big Balls.
Speaker 2 (13:37):
Big Balls I think that's his technical term. Yes, possibly
to receive the Presidential Medal of I think freedom.
Speaker 4 (13:44):
I think he got a medal. I think it happened.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
It's quite possible, so we should show big Balls some
respect for his struggles.
Speaker 4 (13:55):
I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:56):
I mean it's I never thought I would se the
day where I'd be like reporting on story happening in
the city and talking about somebody named Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (14:03):
But here we go.
Speaker 2 (14:03):
Really, you did see this coven, You did see ekind of.
Speaker 3 (14:06):
My being go card care. For a podcast that I
host about local DC news and issues called Citycast DC,
I interviewed Mark C. Graves, who was like a long
time DC reporter, and I said, Oh, is there any
truth to the idea that this attack on Big Balls is? Like,
what was the impetus to all this that Elon Musk
was like, Trump, you need to federalize DC's police department
(14:27):
because of what happened to my former staffer. And I
understand why people where that narrative is coming from. But
he really pointed out something, which is that, you know,
Trump has been talking about taking over DC's police department
for a very long time. He referenced it during his
first administration a little bit a lot less than he
did it the second time around. He really dialed it
up in his second campaign. He began talking about it
(14:48):
even in his first few months in office by threatening
to take control over MPD if our Mayor Muriel Bowser
did not make certain concessions like clearing homeless encampments near
the White House and removing Black Lives Matter plot from
outside the White House. He also threatened to take over
MPD and DC in general when a former Trump administration staffer,
Mike gil was shot and killed during a carjacking in
(15:09):
DC back in February. So when that happened again, he
was like, I'm taking over MPD, I'm taking over empty
So well, the Big Balls.
Speaker 2 (15:16):
Thing, alleged carjacking of Big Balls, I will say this.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
You know those stories where you're like, we're gonna get
more information about this, so it's best to just wait.
I have a I don't know anything. I don't have
any special details, but like my senses, this is one
of those situations where it's like, you know, first the
story was I was with a girlfriend in her car
and we were carjacked by two unarmed teens. Then Elon Musk,
(15:41):
super spreader of misinformation that he is, was like, oh,
he was attacked while trying to rescue an elderly woman. Like,
I just have seen enough about crime and DC I am.
I'm looking forward to hearing more information about what actually
went down there.
Speaker 4 (15:56):
I'll just put it that way if that makes sense.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
With mister big Balls, with mister big Ball, I guess
mister Balls, I guess big is the first mister Balls.
Speaker 4 (16:04):
Please, mister Balls is my father. So yeah, Like, I
think the.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
Big Balls thing might have been very convenient timing or
like a good excuse to actually move forward. But I
think narratives that big Balls got attacked and now Trump
is taking over MPD. Yeah, I think that like doesn't
really tell the whole story, which is that this has been.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
A long time coming.
Speaker 3 (16:22):
This has been something that Trump has been like obsessed
with for quite some time, even going back from before
his second administration.
Speaker 2 (16:29):
And there's there's been like a media campaign in the
past few months of specifically taking like public transit robbery
videos and making them super viral of like teens who
will like steal like designer clothes on public transit, yeah,
and turning turning this into like a national epidemic. And
again you can look at look at the like the
shoplifting videos from a few years ago that even though
(16:52):
crime was going down, there was videos that very visible
videos of shoplifting that went super viral to help form
this this crime wave narrative that the statistics don't necessarily support,
to the point where you have Republicans actually like denying
the FBI's own crime statistics. F the FBI famously soft
on crime institution, the FBI, but Republicans saying that these
(17:16):
debts have to be wrong because we all know that
there's crime everywhere, and like, how do we know that
because you're seeing like a TikTok video about it and
that's your proof. As you've seen you saw one or
two videos of like people robbing an Apple store and
now you think that crime must be statistically higher everywhere, Okay, yeah,
And I.
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Think that's why the Big Ball's narrative continues to really
be so sticky.
Speaker 2 (17:40):
Ooh, I don't like that.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
Yeah, I don't mean it how it sounds, but like,
it doesn't matter if you have statistics from the FBI
saying that crime is going down whatever whatever, when you
if you have a visceral image of like a bloodied
Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (17:54):
Beaten on the street, right like, And so I think that.
Speaker 3 (17:57):
It's it's really interesting how and I guess I'll just
say it, how easily manipulated people are, oh yeah, and
how they're able to go against the facts when they
are confronted with an image of like teens robbing a
CVS or like oh like yeah, like elluded out CBS
totally because that is so visceral. And so that's something
I've really struggled with, is like I don't know how
(18:17):
to counter these emotionally charged, visceral TikTok videos and images
that present one thing with facts, like it's like very
difficult to be like, well, the data says this when
people are being motivated by a different thing.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
No, And that's why it's almost kind of fruitless to
go about that strategy at this point, and like, I
don't know how to approach this, and I think it's
also worth mentioning, like you're we are not immune to
this either. We might get targeted with like different narratives.
Maybe maybe a CVS robbery doesn't do it for us,
but no, like everyone's motivated by like emotional reactions to
things that we see as like bad or often horrific,
(18:51):
and that that does change the way that we understand
like the physical aspects, like the like the statistical patterns
of the world very clearly, Like we're we're emotional creatures.
That's what drives us. The fact that the emotional plight
of Big Balls is driving the ruling party in the
country right now is just a little bit more notable
because it's one white guy named Big Balls.
Speaker 4 (19:14):
Yeah, it's true.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
And it almost doesn't even make sense to like come
back the idea that this is about crime. But I
know it's not about crime because one, the Trump administration
recently made very drastic cuts to d C security funding,
and so if he was really very invested in crime
and DC seems like something that his administration would not
have done. Also, something that our mayor, who I do
(19:36):
want to talk about, has said is that, as you
were sort of alluding to earlier, federal agents and military
personnel are not the people who are going to be
useful when it comes to DC like street crime. These
are people who probably aren't even informed about DC's local
ordinances and laws. Why would they be right, and so
these are not people whose jobs it is to be
(19:58):
out engaging with some millions about quality of life crimes
like open containers or drinking on sidewalks. I saw a
pretty viral video of the police going up and stopping
somebody for he says, smoking a joint on his porch.
Speaker 4 (20:11):
In DC, you are allowed to possess marijuana.
Speaker 3 (20:14):
But he also was like, just so you know, Trump
is cracking down on all of these quality of life crimes.
So you can't drink a beer on your portion anymore.
That's incorrect in the district of club, but you absolutely
can drink alcohol on your private property outside. And it's like, well,
how would he know. He's not even from here. He's
a federal agent, So like, yeah, these are not people
who are trained or skilled in combating the kind of
(20:37):
civilian level street crime that we're seeing them do.
Speaker 4 (20:40):
This is just not an appropriate use of these people.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
And so the thing that kind of gets me is
that for the amount of money that we are spending
on having federal agents deal with low level street crime
like per MPD and per the DOJ's own statistics, the
kind of crimes that they are been combating this week
are things like open contained a fair evasions. It was like, yeah,
you need you need an FBI agent to deal with this,
(21:04):
what are you talking about? But the money that we're spending,
we probably could house every single unhoused person in the
district of Columbia with the money that we are spending
on this nonsense. It's like, that's the thing that makes
me so angry. I don't want to live in a
city that's full of crime. Luckily I don't because crime
is going down. But if you genuinely wanted to combat crime,
there is a reasonable way to do this. And this
(21:26):
is just a big show of force to freak everybody
out and basically demonstrate that Trump can go into cities
and do this.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
It's not actually about lowering crime. The reason why they
would never want to house peoples because they don't actually
want to. They don't want homeless people to live good lives.
They want to exercise power. That's the primary motivator. And
not only can bringing an out of state police be
like inconvenient, it can have lethal consequences, right because they
do not know the areas that they're policing, They do
not know the people in those areas. They don't understand
(21:56):
what it's actually like. When I was at the Republican
National Conference Committee, I don't know how do how do
I not know what the RNC is convention?
Speaker 4 (22:06):
It depends on if you're talking about the event or
the like entity the entity.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
When I was at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee,
Wisconsin last year, I responded to the scene of a
police shooting where police from out of state who were
brought in for the convention, we're policing outside of the
area the convention and shot and killed a homeless black
man because they did not understand where the homeless people
(22:34):
have their encampments, how they solve disputes, how people can
get into fights. But that does not mean like you
have to kill people who are having a fight. So no,
this has drastic consequences. Something that the police Milwaukee would
would have been aware of this encampment, would have possibly
been aware of the normal way that homeless people can
get in two fights with each other but are not
(22:55):
going to kill each other. Instead, you have an out
of state cap from like oh I or something get
freaked out that two people are fighting and then shoot
one of them and stuff like. This is why out
of state police are so dangerous when they're being brought
into communities that they really just don't understand exactly that.
Speaker 3 (23:15):
I did an interview with a local community organizer in
DC and they told me pretty much the same thing,
that there is an aspect of trust and relationship building
that goes into not just like solving crimes, but combating
crimes before they start, right, Like, there is a level
of deep relationship building and trust building that has to
be in effect there and that is what actually can
(23:37):
sometimes make communities safer. When it comes to unhoused people
and immigrants, these are not people who are committing crimes.
These are people who are statistically more likely to be
the victims of crimes. And so when you bring in
outside forces who do not have trust, who who have
not built that relationship, and they're terrorizing the communities that
are statistically more likely to be the victims of crime.
(23:57):
That's going to be the thing that results in the
opposite up crime going down, right, because you are damaging
whatever trust and whatever relationship and whatever understandings have been
built with this community and law enforcement going forward. Right,
And so if we're genuinely interested in buildings are for communities,
bringing in all of these outside military and federal personnel
(24:17):
is simply not how you do it.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
That's how I know it's bullshit.
Speaker 3 (24:20):
They don't actually care about any of this, and like
it is, it is sort of crazy making because I
feel like they want us spinning out about all of
this stuff, all of this bullshit that they're spinning, which
fucking guiltiest charge for me this week is all I've
been doing. But you know, it's just it's this. They're
so effective at the spin and the manipulation.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
No, I'm one of the former Fox News hosts who
somehow has a position in government.
Speaker 4 (24:41):
Heeg seth.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
No, it was another one. No, No, there is another.
This is which one? It was one of the ones
who looks like your evil aunt. Oh uh Dinian Pierro Yes,
Oh my god, I'm glad that we could figure that
out based on that description.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That's that's all you had to say.
Speaker 2 (25:03):
But she was specifically asked, like, what are you going
to do to address the root cause of crime? And
she says, we don't want to. We're not going to.
That's not what we're actually focusing on. We're focusing on
just like eliminating crime, Yeah, through like force, through intimidation,
and not even actually eliminating crime, just just just exercising power,
which is what they're actually trying to say. And that's
(25:24):
that's the whole point of this.
Speaker 3 (25:26):
Yes, and it's not just crime written large through force.
It is crime in cities that are run by democrats
that are heavily black and brown populations. Because yeah, you
don't see them going into white communities that have crime,
which white communities do have crime.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
You don't see them going into.
Speaker 3 (25:42):
Cities where they have Republican mayors where crime is also
quite bad. No, that's not even that's not even like
part of the conversation. It is very clear what they
are saying. This is an attack.
Speaker 2 (25:52):
It's about power.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Yeah, this is a show of power to communities that
we don't like. And I have to say something about this,
which is that you know, when this first happened, when
I was interviewing that longtime reporter Mark Seagraves, something that
he told me that really scared me was that the
administration is doing this entirely legally and by the book.
Speaker 4 (26:11):
He was like, Oh, it's clear that they are.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Following every letter of the law, to the point where
the first statement out of our mayor's office was that
they were not challenging this takeover of MPD. Yeah, because
they did not feel like they had any kind of
legal grounds to do so, which is grim. That really
tells me that they have got their act together. There
was a time where people were like, Oh, they're just
going to do things and see what sticks and see
what you know, see what gets challenged and court, see
(26:34):
what they can get away with. It really tells me
a lot that in this instance, they're like, we're doing
this by the book, so that there is no legal
challenge to what we are doing.
Speaker 2 (26:52):
What has the reaction been like from like city government?
Speaker 3 (26:56):
Ugh, I mean, I will say I came on this
podcast a while ago and I would say, like, I
don't want to say I defended our mayor Muriel Bowser,
but I did want to say like she is in
a position that no other elected official in the country
is in where she has to sort of play nice
with a madman. I play on the show, and I
said that she had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions, which,
(27:21):
you know, say what you would about it, I believe
was grounded in an attempt to like.
Speaker 4 (27:26):
Work with Trump to avoid worse outcomes.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
To avoid this from happening, to avoid this from happening.
Speaker 3 (27:32):
So my point is now, I mean, it really shows
you the futality of trying to make concessions with a fascist, Right.
Speaker 2 (27:38):
What's the point.
Speaker 3 (27:39):
Yeah, because the thing that we were trying to avoid,
the thing that all of these little appeasements and concessions.
Speaker 4 (27:44):
Were meant to avoid, has happened. To be clear, Trump
has not.
Speaker 3 (27:48):
Taken over DC entirely, and home rules still stands, and
so the very worst outcome has not happened yet. But
this is pretty damn bad, and so part of me
is like, what did all those concessions get you? And day,
just this morning, she has totally flipped her tune on this.
She actually flew to mar A Lago to see Trump
yesterday and she came back saying, well, maybe having more
(28:09):
law enforcement in communities in DC will make people safer.
And I just cannot express to you how much it
feels like I would speak for myself, it feels like
we have been abandoned by leadership when we need it most.
Right in DC, we have the mayor Mariel Bowser, who
I just told you about. We have a congressional representative,
Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has a long time a history
(28:31):
of being a fighter and protector of DC's autonomy. However,
she can't vote, so she doesn't really have a lot
of power, and a big conversation in DC has been
the fact that she is really aging. She is, like
I think, the second oldest member of Congress in the
United States, and it just we don't feel like we
have anybody who can fight for us, who can speak
(28:51):
up for us. And I will say this, like, I'm
very disappointed in our mayor. I'm very disappointed in the
fact that she has seems to have really been behind.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
Trump on this.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
She does have a not terrible relationship with Trump, which
in some ways can be good or bad depending on
how you look at it. But I went into this
having a sense that, oh well, I think our mayor
is going to fight for us, our mayor is going
to fight for DC's autonomy. And I'm coming out of
it thinking, I don't think that she is fighting for
us like the way that I would want her to
be positioning herself in this moment, I'm not seeing her do.
(29:21):
And the reality is, unfortunately the mayor of DC doesn't
really have a lot of power and protection. She does
when you when you compare that to somebody like Gavin Newsom,
who when Trump sent the National Guard into LA knows
that he has like the power of two senators behind him, right,
Like our mayor doesn't have that.
Speaker 4 (29:38):
And it just really made clear when it comes to
protecting DC.
Speaker 3 (29:43):
We're really on our own. We're really all we have.
We don't really have a lot of power. We are
really depending on folks like you care to get the
word out the people who do have elected officials that
they can call and advocate, because.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Like there's really nobody to call.
Speaker 3 (29:59):
And I will say I will say this, if the
worst thing happens and DC's home rule is overturned, which
would be a disaster, Like I should come back on
the show and talk about what that would look like.
Speaker 4 (30:11):
If that happens, DC will have no one.
Speaker 3 (30:13):
The only people who will be in charge of how
DC is run is Trump and a small handful of
people that he would personally appoint to be the commissioner
of DC.
Speaker 4 (30:24):
So the last time that DC did.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
Not have home rule, it was the only people who
were in charge were the President and I think it
was three commissioners that he personally appointed. None of these
people lived in DC other than the President who lived
in the White House. And so down to the smallest
aspect of city life, I'm talking about social services, DC,
health like unemployment, the streets, the schools, all of that
would be run by President Trump. I cannot express to
(30:48):
you what a disaster this would be. And the smallest
thing getting done in DC, down to a pothole being repaved,
would take congressional oversight.
Speaker 4 (30:58):
So anybody who thinks that.
Speaker 3 (30:59):
That is a a reasonable way to run a city,
oh my god, wake up.
Speaker 2 (31:05):
Well, I am not thrilled about the idea of commissioner
big balls, because that would happen. You know that, I know.
And it's funny you mentioned Newsome, and Newsom was another
guy who was trying to make concessions with Trump, specifically
around like trans sports.
Speaker 4 (31:18):
Oh my god, don't even get me started.
Speaker 2 (31:20):
And he tried to, you know, make make those sort
of like concessions and like roll back some aspects of
supporting trans people in schools and trans kids, and then
Trump's Department of Education still went after California schools, so like, yeah,
no matter what concessions you give, they will still go
after you. Earlier, you mentioned there was like a rest
on your block last night, Like how how is this
affected daily life for you and other are the residents
(31:43):
of like DC?
Speaker 4 (31:44):
So far it has been grim.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
You know, we've seen Border Patrol, EDA, FBI National Guard
just walking the streets. And again, like something about DC
is that in August pretty much everybody leaves towns.
Speaker 4 (31:58):
What's a bit of a ghost town?
Speaker 3 (31:59):
There is nothing that justifies the massive disruption in city
services that has happened. On my street last night they
had a row of Border Patrol SUVs blocking traffic for
genuinely no reason. Like the level to which to say
are they are purposely disrupting the flow of city life
(32:21):
cannot be overstated. And you know, I want to make
it clear also, this is, as you said, a real
attack on the unhoused community in DC. We have already
seen very disturbing images of unhoused people being taken away
by police yesterday in the White House at that they
were going to be forcibly removing unhoused people, forcing them
into shelters, hospitals, or jails, and if they didn't go,
they would face fines. I mean finding somebody who was
(32:44):
living on the street, Like, what are you doing?
Speaker 2 (32:46):
Yeah, finding someone who has no money? Yeah?
Speaker 5 (32:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
And DC has a long history of having an issue
with the unhoused community. We do not have enough shelters
to accommodate people, and even if we did not, everybody's
gonna want to go to a shelter. So this has
been an issue long before Trump was ever in DC,
and it does take some complexity and thoughtfulness to solve it.
Not just going in and removing people by brute force,
(33:10):
Like that is the absolute worst.
Speaker 4 (33:12):
Thing that you can be doing for this.
Speaker 2 (33:13):
No, I mean that that relates to Trump's like anti
Vagrancy executive Order from a few weeks ago, where he
wants to lock homeless people up in like mental hospitals
and jails and like like like forcibly so and like
change change the rules for how how shelters work, how
shelters can get funding mandatory like drug treatments, and yeah,
(33:35):
really actually just trying to like involuntarily commit people into
civil institutions exactly. I see parts of what he's doing
in DC is trying to demonstrate his like plan for
that and how he wants that to spread across the
country and just yeah, taking people off the street but
then locking them either in a jail or onto like
(33:57):
a hospital bed.
Speaker 3 (33:58):
Yes, and there was also an ice raid at the
home depot out in Northeast this week. Basically, I do
think that first and foremost this is an attack on
DC's black, brown, immigrant, and unhoused community. But you know,
I've seen images of empty bars and empty restaurants where
ice and border patrol are are inside the place.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
Yeah, why would you want to go out? So if
there's the fucking like the military grading around.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
Yes, it's fucking up the vibes right, Like that's I
will say. Like so in addition to.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
The attacks on these vulnerable communities, like, if you want
to have a community where people feel safe to go out,
they want to spend money, they want.
Speaker 4 (34:37):
To like enjoy the city, the vibes are terrible.
Speaker 3 (34:40):
This is this is just everything that makes DC great
and a good place to live in a place that
people want to come and spend time and and and
start their families. This kind of show of force goes
against that and threatens that. It really does threat like
DC is a particular place. It's like why this is
my home? This kind of stuff really threatens our way
of life in ways that are just in is just sad.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
I'm not sure if you have like examples like what
people are trying to do to cope with this or
try to like like stand their ground in their community.
I guess, but like how are people like channeling their
frustration right now?
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Well, there was a very viral video of somebody throwing
a sub sandwich at a military personnel on U Street.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
So well that's a start. As long as we if
we can get fifty thousand people with sub sandwiches, we
might be onto something hero DC needs. So that's one
literally the hero DC needs. Yeah, I see.
Speaker 3 (35:35):
What you did there, Yeah, I would say, so there
are I feel grateful that there are organizations in DC,
like local organizations that we're preparing for this and so
organizations like Free DC. I spoke to one of their
representatives earlier this week about what they're doing, and they're
really focused on giving residents resources, and so they're running
cop watching trainings.
Speaker 2 (35:55):
That's good.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
That's good. They're making sure that.
Speaker 3 (35:56):
Folks know that their rights have not changed, know their
rights if an agent comes up to you to talk
to you. They're making sure people know what they do
and don't have to say in those situations, which I
think is important.
Speaker 4 (36:07):
People should definitely check out Free DC.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
They've been around since the sixties or they have been
protecting DC's autonomy for a very long time. One of
the things that they were telling folks to do was
do you remember how in twenty twenty people would go
outside and bang pots and pants to thank essential workers
and medical personnel.
Speaker 4 (36:25):
They were telling folks, because.
Speaker 3 (36:27):
The streets feel so militarized, not everybody's gonna feel like
going out to a protest or going out to a
march at eight o'clock at night. Make as much noise
as you can, whether it's from your open window or
from your block, or from your stoop, as a way
to demonstrate opposition to this. And so if you want
more information about the kinds of that kind of organizing
that they're trying to provide for folks.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
Definitely check out Free DC. But I do think I mean.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
The vibes are rage, and I hate that that rage
feels so impotent that we that like this is just
a another a million examples of why we need full
state that we've needed it for so long, because we
are being disenfranchised. We have the possibility that people in
power in DC could be people that nobody elected. Trump
(37:12):
could appoint anybody as Commissioner of DC and yeah, it
could be big balls, right, And so we are in
a situation that is so grim and.
Speaker 4 (37:20):
I think that shows you know, people, people are really
feeling that.
Speaker 3 (37:24):
And I guess one thing I want to I want
to add is that I was talking earlier about how
it's frustrating that I find that I'm often in this
conversation like trying to combat Trump, and I feel I
feel like I'm in a a stance that I hate,
which is this reactive stance where pace uws bullshit and
I feel like it's my job to debunk it, and
it's like, well it's a bullshit.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I could be doing other things. I hate that.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
We have gotten this narrative that cities are bad, and
that goes against our shared understanding of this country where
cities are good. If you live in a city, don't
let Trump turn you against city life. Don't let Trump
turn you against cities. People want to be in cities.
Cities are good, cities are safe, cities are cool to live,
and people want to be in the city. If people
(38:08):
didn't want to live in DC, my rent wouldn't be
so goddamn high. Right, people want to be here for
a reason. When Trump got up on that presser and
talked about how tourists come to DC this and that
he's right, if DC were truly a bombed out hell hole,
taurus wouldn't want to bring their families here. Cities are good,
and I don't think that we should let Trump rewrite
the narrative that our cities are bad.
Speaker 4 (38:28):
Cities are good, They are good places to be.
Speaker 3 (38:30):
We don't have to get caught up in his fake,
bullshit narrative of demonizing cities.
Speaker 2 (38:35):
So that's why I think everyone should travel to d C.
Let's all go to the Capitol, put on some put
on some masks, wave some flags, and just get in
there to show could we could take it over. We
could take the city back Joe Biden twenty twenty eight.
Speaker 4 (38:51):
Let's go.
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (38:52):
I mean I did see this interview on News Nation
where I think it was Medi Hassan was talking to
some shithead and he was like, Oh, if Trump cares
about crime so much, why did he pardon a bunch
of January sixth attackers who threatened and attacked law enforcement?
Speaker 4 (39:06):
And it's like, oh, he would.
Speaker 3 (39:07):
The interviewer was just like, oh, come on, come on,
you want to talk about that, come.
Speaker 4 (39:11):
On, And it's like, Okay, I thought tough on crime. Huh,
tough on crime.
Speaker 2 (39:14):
Okay, No, it's it's it's crime with three ellipses, not
the actual category of crime exactly, crime wink wink.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Yeah, it's like, we know.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
What they're what they're trying to say. But honestly, just
talking to you about this has made me feel a
lot better. I've been raging all week, so this is
the first time that I feel like I've actually like
gotten it all out.
Speaker 4 (39:35):
So thank you for talking to me about it.
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Yeah, No, we will. We will certainly keep up with
what's happening in DC with you know, how long National
Guard's going to be there, how long this this federalization lasts.
Maybe they'll eliminate all crime within thirty days and things
will go back to normal. Who knows.
Speaker 4 (39:54):
I mean the.
Speaker 3 (39:55):
Day that he took over, there was olver there was
a shooting like an hour or two later, So I
was like, oh, that's all We're gonna handle this?
Speaker 2 (40:01):
Well, I guess not, but no, we will keep up
with this as well as Trump's promise is to go
further and expand to five other cities. So thank you
for sharing your thoughts and experiences as a resident of DC.
Speaker 3 (40:16):
Bridget, Thank you for having me, And yeah, like, if
you're out there in DC, stay safe, keep hope alive.
Speaker 4 (40:24):
We're all we got.
Speaker 2 (40:25):
Where else can people find you on the internet? Bridget?
Besides you know, on the on the steps of the
Capitol waving an American flag, Yeah.
Speaker 4 (40:34):
In a mask. Yeah. You can find me at my podcasts.
Speaker 3 (40:37):
I have a podcast on iHeartRadio called there Are No
Girls on the Internet. I have a podcast about local
DC news and issues called Citycast DC. You can also
find me on Instagram at bridget rain d C, on
TikTok at bridget rain DC, or on YouTube and there
Are No Girls on the Internet.
Speaker 4 (40:51):
Cheers.
Speaker 5 (40:56):
It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
foolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can
now find sources for it could happen here listed directly
in episode descriptions.
Speaker 1 (41:13):
Thanks for listening.
It Could Happen Here News
Hosts And Creators
Robert Evans
Garrison Davis
James Stout
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