August 15, 2025 • 42 mins
This week, President Trump seized control of Washington DC's police. It's national news, but it's also deeply personal for Bridget, who was born in DC and has lived here most of her life.
The situation is still unfolding, but Bridget breaks down what's happening, what decades of DC history say about how we got here, and why people on both the right and the left are talking about it wrong.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:04):
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. As some
of you might know, I live in Washington, d C,
our nation's capital, and when I'm not making this podcast,
I also co host a podcast about local DC news
(00:26):
called city Cast DC. So this has been a pretty
difficult week for the country, but especially a difficult time
for my city because Trump announced his administration is taking
over DC's police force and deploying the National Guard. So
I wanted to talk a little bit about what that
means for DC from the perspective of someone who lives here.
(00:47):
There are obviously implications for the whole country from something
like this. Trump himself has even said that this is
just the beginning and he wants to do similar power
grabs in cities across the country. But I really want
to talk about it from my perspective as somebody who
lives in DC and is experiencing the impacts of these
recent changes. There are definitely some tech and media implications
(01:08):
for the kinds of issues that we cover on the show,
which I'll definitely get into, but mostly this just feels
like an attack on my hometown. So it's pretty personal
for me. By the way, if you hear sirens or
helicopters while I'm recording, that's just my new reality now,
So not much I can do about it, but I'll
do my best. So this feels personal because you know,
(01:29):
DC is my home. I've lived in other places. I've
lived in San Francisco and Brooklyn and a few other places,
but DC is really where I'm from. My late mother,
God Rest her soul, did her medical residency here at
Children's Hospital in DC. I taught English classes to undergraduates
at Howard University. I've made lifelong friends here. I've worked
one hundred different jobs here. I fell in love here,
(01:49):
had my heart broken here. DC is where I have
lived the longest and is where I will always return
to because it's my home. My situation is a little
bit unusual because d C has a reputation as a
transient city, the kind of place where people move for
a few years for a job or an internship.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Or school and then leave.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
People move to DC and might not have a ton
of investment in the city long term, or they might
move here and have no idea about DC's very complex history,
which you really need to understand to truly understand what
if happening right now with Trump's threats to DC.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
One weird quirk about DC is that people who aren't.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
From here or don't live here, tend to really only
think about it as a seat of national power. They
sometimes forget that there's about seven hundred thousand or so
people who live here who under all of these national
political issues really playing out in our backyard, yet who
have less electoral power and less agency because we're not
(02:45):
a state, and it's a really big problem. So where
you live, if you're listening from the United States, assuming
you don't live in DC like I do, decisions about
how your state is run or how your local tax
dollars are spent probably lie with your local and state leaders.
But that is not really the case for me and
other residents of DC. We have this weird hybrid situation
where there is some local control, but ultimately Congress has
(03:08):
authority over everything. That same Congress that could not even
be bothered to pass the city's budget before going on
a recess, causing chaos in every agency that has to
plan for picking up garbage or fixing potholes or keeping
the libraries and swimming pools open.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And all of this is.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Made worse by the fact that DC residents are essentially disenfranchised.
We don't have representatives who can vote in either the
House or the Senate, even though we pay taxes just
like every other American. We have less electoral power and
less agency because we're not a state. Our license plates
here in DC say taxation without representation, kind of Aalian
(03:45):
cheek reference to the Revolutionary War era rallying cry against
the British Parliament. A not so fun fact about DC
is that DC residents only got the right to vote
in presidential elections in nineteen sixty one. So when people
say things like call your representative or call your elected
official to oppose XYZ, here in.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
D C we have no one to call.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Our congressional representative Eleanor Holmes Norton cannot vote on bills
being considered by the full House, so we don't really
have a say or a voice the same way that
folks in other parts of the country do. So all
of this background matters for how Trump has been able
to threaten DC. Even before this week, he spent a
lot of this campaign and first administration really just talking
(04:28):
crap about my city. And finally, earlier this week he
announced big plans to take over DC. He really likes
to say that he has taken over DC, but you
know who's a serial liar, so no one should be
surprised to find out that that isn't actually true. The
background of this is a little bit complicated, but the
quick and dirty version is that d C has had
(04:48):
what's called home rule, or the ability for DC to
govern itself, since the nineteen seventies, thanks to the Home
Rule Act. So even though DC is not a state,
our local government and leaders can still make decisions about
what happens here in the district. When the Home Rule
Act passed, it was a win for local control and democracy,
but it was also an acknowledgment by Congress that the
minutia of running a city is best left to the
(05:10):
folks who live there. So, to be clear, as of today,
home rule for d C still stands. It's still the
law of the land. So if you hear folks saying
that Trump has taken over DC, that's not exactly right,
and that distinction matters. Trump has taken over DC's police,
our local police force Metropolitan Police Department or MPD, but
(05:32):
not the city itself. But even still, Trump just taking
over MPD our police force is still very very bad.
So let's talk about exactly what's going on here in DC.
So here's the basics of what's going on. On Monday,
the Trump administration announced that they were federalizing DC's police force,
(05:53):
the Metropolitan Police Department or MPD. They also announced that
the National Guard would be deployed in DC. Now, he
is in a state, but it does have a national
Guard that Trump, and only Trump has authority over. Trump
is also sending in National Guard from other states into DC.
To do this, Trump evokes Section seven forty of the
Home Rule Act, which allows for the president to take
(06:15):
over MPD for forty eight hours, with possible extensions to
thirty days during times of emergencies. To do it for
any longer than thirty days requires congressional approval, which, let's
be real, I honestly don't think would be difficult for
Trump to achieve. I cannot overstate how unprecedented this is.
No president has done this before ever. So all of
(06:36):
this means that about eight hundred and fifty officers and
agents took part in what they called a massive law
enforcement surge across DC, with about one hundred to two
hundred soldiers expected to be out on the streets at
any given time. Why well, if you take Trump at
his word, he says, this whole thing is about crime. Honestly,
I don't even really like to give a lot of
(06:57):
credence to the claims about this whole thing being about crime,
because anyone paying attention can probably see that that is
not what this is about. So it is true that
DC did have a spike in crime in twenty twenty three,
but since then, crime has steadily gone down in DC.
But if you watched Trump's rambling, sprawling press conference where
(07:18):
he talked about everything from repaving DC streets to redoing
the ballroom in the White House to transuse in sports,
almost every stat that Trump through that about crime in
DC was a lie, misleading, or extremely cherry picked to
paint a portrait of crime being out of control in
DC when it simply isn't. It's almost not even worth
(07:39):
calling out all the different instances that he misled people.
But here's just defu to give you a sense. So
Trump said that crime was getting worse in DC, that's
a lie. A recent Department of Justice report shows that
violent crime is down thirty five percent in twenty twenty three,
returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime, that puts
the district's violent crime rate at its lowest in thirty years.
(08:01):
That report shows that when compared to the twenty twenty
three numbers, homicides are down thirty two percent, armed carjackings
are down fifty three percent, and assault with the dangerous
weapon are down twenty seven percent. He also said that
the murders in twenty twenty three in DC reached the
highest rate. This is me quoting him probably ever going
back twenty five years, but that they didn't know what
(08:22):
that means because the data just goes back twenty five years.
And so when I watched this press are in real time,
I was thinking, Oh, I guess he's trying to say that,
you know, we've only been collecting this data for the
last twenty five years. Before then, we don't really have records.
But then when I actually sat down to think about it,
twenty five years ago was the year two thousand? Does
(08:42):
Trump think that crime data was not being collected in
the year two thousand?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It absolutely was. So that was just another lie.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And if people know one thing about DC is that
DC in the eighties and nineties crime was genuinely quite bad.
This was during the crack epidemic that hit DC very hard.
The city's own crime statistics, which we have from the
nineteen seventies, eighties, and nineties, show that back then, when
the population of DC was smaller, there were much higher
(09:11):
numbers of homicides. So not only is that all a lie,
it's also a weird, obvious lie where when you hear
it you think, okay, sure, but then when you think
about it for just a couple of seconds, you realize
how strange and obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And glaring of a lie that is.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I almost wonder if Trump really does think that crime
statistics were not being collected in the year two thousand
and just anecdotally. I've lived here more or less my
entire adult life. Crime ebbs and flows, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Part of city life. I understand that, however, crime in
DC right now is not out of control. It just isn't.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I go for walks by myself, I go out at night,
and I feel safe because this is where I live.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It feels safe to me. Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
At her back. Now, I've heard a lot of people
say that this entire thing is a response to the
attack on Edward Chorstein, also known as the former staffer
in Elon Musk's doge department Big Balls. Big Balls was
(10:34):
allegedly attacked on the street in DC thanks to Elon Musk,
a one man misinformation super spreader. There has been a
lot of inaccurate information about the facts of what exactly
happened in that situation, so I'm not going to really
get into that. However, this image of big Balls bloodied
on the streets of DC created a very visceral image
(10:57):
of crime in DC. I think this is the thing
about crime, which is that it doesn't really matter if
all of the stats, all of the data, and all
the evidence suggest oh, crime is going down. If you
have one visceral image of a bloody nineteen year old.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Or one video, one viral video of like a looted
out CVS.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
This has actually caused a bit of a I don't know,
a personal crisis of confidence because as someone who has
spent my entire career advocating for the importance of truth
and facts and media, the whole thing just makes me
wonder if we truly are like beyond facts, if facts
simply do not matter anymore. The crime rate can be
(11:40):
going down by every measure, but people still have an
emotionally charged photo or a video, and whatever reality that
piece of media affirms is the only reality that matters.
And I've realized that I've really been trying to combat
the true siness. I know that's not a word, but
allow me that of the emotions with actual facts, and
(12:04):
it's not working because those facts just don't work anymore.
It's been a whole thing I've been wrestling with. So anyway,
back to Big Balls, so I totally get why people
think that the attack on him is what sparked all
of this. I've seen this framing online a lot that
Big Balls got beat up by some girls and Elon
Musk had to ask Daddy Trump to take over DC
(12:26):
because of it. But I will say that Trump has
been talking about taking over MPD for a very long
time before Elon Musk was ever even in the White House.
He referenced it some during his first administration, but for
the most part back then he more or less ignored
DC's local issues. And then he really kicked it up
(12:46):
a notch during his second campaign. He actually started out
his second administration right when he was in office in
January with threatening to take over DC and MPD or
Mayor Muriel Bowser did not make certain concessions which will
get into it moment. He also threatened to take over
DC when another former Trump administration staffer, Mike Gill was
shot him killed during a carjacking Back in February, Trump
(13:09):
made those same threats of taking over MPD. So Big
Balls might have been a convenient timing or a good
excuse to actually move forward at a time when Trump
was eager to talk about anything other than his friendship
with Jeffrey Epstein. But I guess I would say I
would push back a bit on narratives that suggest that
big Balls got attacked and that's why Trump is taking
(13:30):
over MPD, because I don't really think it paints the
full story of the fact that this has been a
long time coming to anybody paying attention to the conversation
that Trump is having about DC. So if it's not
really about crime, then what is it really about? Well,
these are my opinions. First, I think with Trump, the
overarching theme is always punishment. Listen, nobody not votes for
(13:54):
Republicans like DC does not vote for Republicans.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Like if you've ever.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Seen that map of who voted for Ronald Reagan back
in nineteen eighty four, the entire map is just one
big blotch of full solid red, which is so unusual,
and there's just two splotches of blue where they voted
for Mondale and not Reagan. Minnesota and d C right,
and so rejecting Republicans has always been our thing in DC,
(14:21):
and especially so for Trump.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
DC overwhelmingly did not vote for Trump. Trump did not
even win DC's Republican primary, Nikki Hayley did. We could
not be making it any more clear that we do
not like him here, and so I think that that's
one big reason why you have Trump taking such a
hostile stance against this city from day one, because we
didn't vote for him. We don't like him.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think that that's also why you saw him start
out his administration with these horrible attacks on federal workers.
I think a class of people that he senses as
being overwhelmingly educated and also overwhelmingly not for him. I
think the first and foremost thing with Trump is always
going to be retribution. But I also think it is
(15:05):
clearly about mounting federal takeovers starting with Democrat run cities,
and also, let's be real cities with black and brown
political leadership and populations. The cities that he called out
by name during his rambling press conference on Monday as
places that he was looking to take over next were
cities like Baltimore, Chicago, you know, cities that have big,
(15:28):
booming black and brown populations and black mayors. It's just
incredibly clear what is going on here, and it's not crime.
It's black and brown leadership. Trump hates it and wants
to destroy it wherever he can. And unfortunately, because d
C is unlike any other place in the United States
and not being a state, Trump has a lot more
authority here in DC than he would anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
In the country.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
How else do I know this is not about crime? Well,
the Trump administration recently made drastic cuts to DC security funding.
Famous Urban Security Fund cut funds for DC to twenty
five point two million from the fiscal year twenty twenty five.
Homeland Security Grant program, which is only a little more
than half of what DC received in twenty twenty four,
doesn't really seem like the behavior of an administration that
(16:14):
is super worried about the crime and the district to
almost have the amount of money that you spend on
preventing crime in the district. And also if you were
genuinely worried about effectively combating crime in the district and
not worried about, say, having big shows of military and
police forces and have it be a big flashy thing.
(16:34):
If you genuinely were caring about combating crime, you would
probably not be using federal agents who are trained to
combat things like organized crime and other kinds of federal concerns.
Those are not going to be the people who are
most useful as officers trying to stop the kind of
crime that DC has, like walking the streets as beat comps.
(16:56):
One of the points that are Mayor Muriel Bowser has
made is that Trump bringing in federal officers and military
personnel who don't know DC law, because why would they
They don't work here and are not trained in DC's
community policing protocols. He's also bringing in military personnel. They
are not meant to be dealing with civilians and walking
(17:16):
a beat on the streets of DC. But that is
exactly what they are doing right outside my apartment.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I mentioned our mayor, Mriel Bowser. I feel like I
should talk a bit about her. If you don't live
in DC, you're probably like, who is this person? This
is not a name that I recognize. I have been
low key kind of defending the mayor. If you heard
me on the Cool Zone podcast, it could happen here.
I've actually taken a little bit of heat for some
of my defenses of our mayor. Listen, I have a
(17:45):
lot of critiques about DC's mayor, just like anybody would
of their political leaders.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
If you want to know my thoughts on Meriel Bowser,
I'll be happy to tell you.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
However, the point that I have been making for the
last few months is that Mayor Bowser is in a
position that no other elected official in the country is in.
She is navigating something that no other elected official in
the United States has to navigate. Because she's mayor of
a city that is not a state. She essentially has
to navigate this public relationship with an unstable, lying, racist,
(18:17):
fascist in such a way that it will hopefully end
with what is best for our city taking place, which,
in my defenses of her, I guess I basically just
feel that we should own that that is a reality, right,
and that's a complicated thing to have to navigate. During
Trump's first administration, Bowser was really taking a defiant stance.
(18:38):
She did things like painting Black Lives Matter outside of
the White House, for instance. But this time around we
saw a very different public positioning from the mayor. She
took this stance of appeasement and contrition with Trump very early.
I suspect in the hope that they could play nice
and Trump would just sort of ignore sees local issues.
(19:01):
When Trump returned to office in January, two of the
early things that he demanded our mayor do was tear
up Black Lives Matter Plaza Boulevard outside of the White
House and remove encampments of unhoused people at Trump's direction.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Which she did very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But none of that, none of that whole song and
dance that she did of appeasing Trump and doing what
he wanted her to do, avoided the outcome that we
are seeing this week of Trump federalizing the police force.
She had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions in
an attempt to avoid this outcome. Although to be clear
DC still has home Rool for now, so that horrible,
(19:37):
horrible outcome has not yet come to fruition. But I
think it's a good example of why appeasing a fascist
doesn't work, and it's disappointing that we have to keep
learning that lesson over and over and over again. And
I have to say I've been a little disappointed with
the way that the mayor is responding to the takeover
of MPD. She basically has been on record as saying
(19:58):
this might be a good sing for the city to
have more police and have military personnel walking around. This
could be a good thing. Something to really note is
that the first messages out of our Mayor's office when
this went down was that they were saying they were
not going to be mounting any kind of legal challenge
to what the Trump administration is doing in DC because
they did not think they would be able to legally
(20:19):
challenge anything because the Trump administration did everything buy the book.
That is pretty different from what we saw from Trump's
actions earlier in the administration, when it seemed like they
were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what
would stick and what would be challenged in court. He
did this takeover of DC's police force legally to the
(20:40):
lecture to the point where it was not able to
be challenged at all legally, which is pretty telling. It
wasn't until I think yesterday, on some kind of a
webinar about these changes, that the mayor said anything really
critical about what was happening. She called it a quote
authoritarian push, but really barely mentioned Trump by name in
any of.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Her public comments.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Now it's possible that she might just be trying to
further appease Trump to stave off further threats on DC's
home rule, which I don't know, maybe is a strategy,
but in my heart, the way that this is coming
off to me, it just feels like we don't have
a voice championing us, and in a moment of crisis,
(21:22):
that's really what you want, whether that person can actually
do anything, you do want someone who seems to be
like there, they have your back and they're advocating for you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And personally, I have not felt like that at all
right now.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
The only thing I feel like we have is ourselves
as each other is organizers. I feel like our elected
officials have kind of abandoned us, both the mayor and
the city Council have been pretty quiet on any criticism
of this takeover. Our congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton has
also kind of stayed out of it.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
She has a.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Long history of being a civil rights activist going back
decades who has really thought hard and champion DC's autonomy. However,
she is also the second oldest member of Congress, and
so there's lots of questions about whether or not we
actually have the leadership that can support DC at a
time when we clearly need the support and the backbone.
(22:15):
And again, I get that some of this might be
good strategy. I'm sure somebody out there listening is like, oh,
maybe they're you know, this is all part of their strategy.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But if I'm being honest, it just feels really shitty.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Part of this might be my own emotionality, because this
week has been a doozy. It is a doozy to
walk around your city and see military personnel harassing people.
It's a doozy to feel like you don't have a
say and what's happening on your own streets and your
own block, on your own city, And so I want
to own that like this this could be just my
(22:51):
own emotionality of the situation. I do think that even
if it's meaningless postering, I would have liked to have
seen elected officials in DC who at least made me
feel like they were standing up to Trump, if even
if in reality there wasn't much they could do, if
it was just words. It really made me realize, even
(23:12):
if words are just words.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Sometimes you want to hear the words.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I don't know, maybe it sounds silly, but I was
a little bit disappointed, like you are looking for a
message of strength and leadership, like somebody's got this, and
then just.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Hearing crickets doesn't feel great. And I do also want
to own that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Unfortunately, the reality is that the mayor of DC has
a lot less power and protection than someone like Gavin Newsom,
who has two stanators behind him when he took a
defiant stance against Trump, when Trump deployed the National Guard
in LA earlier this summer.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Even folks like JB.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Pritzker or Wes Moore, they're all governors of states and
that statehood gives them a lot more protection and autonomy,
and here in DZ we simply do not have that.
And I think when we talk about the importance of
stuff like statehood. It is so easy to just get
caught up and talking about it as a civil rights
issue or a racial justice issue or a democracy issue,
(24:06):
which it absolutely is. But statehood also really matters for
how we are able to combat this kind of chaos
and hostility. Otherwise DC residents like me end up feeling
like we were being held hostage by a madman. More
after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(24:38):
All of this just goes to show that DC needed
full statehood yesterday. We needed full statehood before this, ever,
before Trump was ever even in the White House. We
needed it since forever. And we don't have that. And
until we have that, this kind of chaos that Trump
has been able to unleash on our city is not
going to end.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
And I want to talk a bit.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
About what I'm seeing as a DC resident here on
the ground, because things in DC are chaotic and grim.
We've seen Order Patrol, Ice, DA, FBI, and the National
Guard walking the streets of DC. Anecdotally, I can say
I have seen them in places that to me really
don't make a ton of sense, like patrolling the super
(25:20):
safe Georgetown neighborhood at ten o'clock at night when it's
essentially a ghost town, or patrolling the National Mall at
two pm on a weekday. There was also an ICE
rate at the Home Depot out of Northeast This week too,
the DC Police put out an executive order saying that
the DC Police were now going to be coordinating with
ICE so that even if they stop somebody and that
(25:41):
stop does not end with an arrest or anybody in custody,
they would still be allowed to alert ICE about that
person and their whereabouts, which I think gives you a
sense of the kind of coordination they're building into all
of this. Last night, there was a huge display of
force and arrests right on my block, which is essentially residential.
I counted over a dozen police vehicles, including unmarked SUVs
(26:03):
and Border Patrol pickup trucks. They arrested people who were
just coming out of a grocery store at a lot
of these big shows of force have been around arrests
for very low level offenses, things like people smoking weed
in public which here in DC possession of marijuana is decriminalized,
or open containers like drinking in parks, or fair evasions
(26:24):
on buses. The kinds of offenses that it makes absolutely
no sense to have FBI agents arresting people for It
seems like we now have a bit more information about
the category of arrests that were made, and they can
kind of make sense of some of the facts and
figures and stats coming out of the White House about
what they've been doing in DC this week. You know,
they've been putting out these big statistics about all of
(26:47):
these arrests that they've come into the city and been
able to make this week. So far, according to my sources,
in total, since this went down on Monday, they have
made about one hundred arrests. However, that is about average
for the amount of arrest that DC would have made
without the Trump administration being in charge.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So that means after all of.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
This, they are not even really getting more lawbreakers off
the streets. So again, if this whole thing is meant
to be about crime, which Trump says it is, what
exactly is the point. As I'm recording this tonight, I've
been reading up on updates about a checkpoints they set
up on fourteenth and U Street, which is kind of
a busy corridor with lots of bars and restaurants and
chops where they've apparently been stopping every car just trying
(27:28):
to drive by. I don't know what they're looking for,
and honestly, they probably don't even either, as did an
interview with a local reporter from the Washington Post who
told me that the majority of the stops were for
things like folks not wearing seatbelts, or broken tail lights,
or having expired tags, you know, real violent crime.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It just feels like a good old fashioned dragnet, which
is meant to be illegal.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And I think that tonight Wednesday night, was really the
first look into what all of this is actually going
to look like in DC, things like checkpoints, disruption, and
a real general fear in citizens.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I als also an image.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Of a block totally blocked off by about six police cars,
all trying to make an arrest of one person. And
oftentimes you have these intergovernmental federal level military personnel really
just standing around. I think they're meant to be I
don't know, intimidating or something. They're just standing there. I
(28:26):
always wonder, like, how much money are we paying to
pay these people to stand around in an empty neighborhood
at ten o'clock at night. I think the point of
all of this is really to inflame tensions and have
there be chaos on the streets now for nothing. But
we're also in the middle of a pretty bad heat
wave here in DC, so tempers are already hot. Now
(28:46):
you've got law enforcement, law enforcement that are not necessarily
trained on DC's protocols, some of whom are military and
thus not even really trained on dealing with civilians. And
my biggest worry is that all of this is going
to have result in some doing something stupid and the
whole thing will turn into a powder keg. And I
have to imagine that that is the outcome that Trump
wants as well.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I think that is the point of all of this.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
This is also a direct attack on the unhoused community
here in DC. We've already seen horrible footage of unhoused
people being taken away by police I'm not even sure
to wear. Yesterday, the White House said that they were
going to start forcibly removing unhoused people and forcing them
to go to either shelters, hospitals, or jail or face fines,
(29:29):
which I don't know how finding somebody who is living on.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
The streets works.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
But Okay, the issue is DC does not have a
ton of shelter beds, and not every unhoused person is
going to want to go to a shelter. Does it
make sense for every unhoused person to go to a shelter.
I get that this has been an issue long before
Trump ever got involved, but his solution is just a
brute force removal of people. He doesn't really have a
clear plan for where these people will go. My guess
(29:55):
is that quite a few will end up in jail,
a strategy that is not only incredibly expensive as a
strategy that has been proven over and over again to
also be ineffective. And I think that is a big
part of the issue here. DC is a city, and
in any city you're going to have issues like homelessness
and crime, and it's just the reality of life in
the city. Getting people housed takes time, It is a process.
(30:18):
Just wanting to quickly move people who might not have
anywhere else to go because they look unseemly, as Trump said,
is not solving the problem. All you are doing is
traumatizing people who are already extremely vulnerable and forcing them
to move someplace without a clear plan. And the sad
thing is with the money that we're paying to have
federal agents take away unhoused people. We could probably house
(30:41):
every unhoused person in DC. But again, it is not
really about any of that. It is not about actually
solving problems. It's about the show, the posturing. Okay, so
that is my rant. If you're listening and you're not
in BC, you might be thinking what can people do?
What can I do? You're thinking of that because you're
a good person. You're listening to podcast. I appreciate it. So,
(31:03):
as I have made clear, we do not have meaningful
congressional representation in DC. So we need people who don't
live in DC to be our voice to advocate on
our behalf. So contact your representatives and advocate for full
statehood for DC. Republicans like Mike Lee from Utah have
(31:23):
introduced the Bowser Act YEP, an act disparagingly named after
DC's mayor that would strip DC of home rule. I
don't have anyone that I can call to make my
opinions known about how bad that is. So if you
are listening, call your representative and advocate for the self
determination of folks in DC. Also follow local organizations like
(31:47):
Free DC. Free DC is an advocacy organization that is
advocating for self determination for folks in DC. They've been
around it since the sixties, so very long history of
doing good work in DC. I did an interview for
Citycast DC with an organizer from Free DC and they
told me they were very prepared for this outcome. They
had a census was coming and they've been preparing for
(32:08):
it for a while. And what they're focused on right
now is really making sure that DC residents know their rights,
know that they do not have to consent to certain
interactions with police, and running trainings on things like cop watching.
You know how to film and how to watch police
out in the streets. Also, please make sure that you're
sharing good, accurate information. This is a little bit tricky
(32:30):
because I get the impetus for wanting to share things
when you see them, if they scratch a part of
your brain, whether they're true or not, I.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Totally get it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
However, I think in times of crisis, what people need
is facts. What people need is confirmation. And I've just
seen a lot of people, people that I trust, people
that I respect, plan a little fast and plan a
little loose with the kind of information that they are amplifying.
Right now, So I think it is incredibly important to
be precise right now in this time of chaos and
(33:03):
confusion and change. I have seen so much misinformation floating
around about what is actually happening in DC right now,
and I guess I would say that what is happening
in DC right now is very bad. It is bad
enough on its own, but Trump has not taken over DC.
Trump has specifically taken over DC's police. There is certainly
(33:25):
a threat of Trump taking over DC because we are
not a state, but that has not happened. I think
it is important, especially during times of confusion and crisis,
to amplify good information and resources, not rumors. Trump and
its fascist enablers they want us scared, they want us confused,
they want us to not know what the truth is,
(33:45):
and we don't have to help add to that kind
of a climate for them. One of the narratives I've
seen floated a lot is that Trump is going to
essentially give DC to billionaire Peter Teel. So the idea
here is that Trump would sell or give DC to
Peter Thiel to create a deregulated so called Freedom City,
(34:05):
which is a very constant talking point of people like
Curtis Jarvin, who is this far right pro authoritarian voice
who is very cozy with the Trump administration. I have
seen this claim all over the internet. I will just
say this, telling people that you believe this is going
to happen is not a resource.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
What people need right now is.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Facts and verified, substantiated information, And I just don't think
it helps people to get on the internet and potentially
spread panic about something that just is not happening today
when we are in a time of change and confusion
and chaos already. I don't think that there's never any
value in speculating about what's next. I think we should
(34:50):
be keeping an eye on the future. But I have
seen this thing where I think people are really keen
to be the first to amplify narrative or a claim
that they think is going to get lots of engagement
that feel sexy and flashy, and I completely get that. However,
people also need facts and resources, and I understand that
(35:12):
that's a lot less sexy and a lot less flashy,
but that's what actually was going to help people right now,
and that's what people should be amplifying. So let's talk
about that. Let's talk about what could be next what
could be coming down the line? So, first, can Trump
take over DC? Trump has said time and time again
that he wants to revoke DC's home Rule and have
the federal government dictate how DC is run as a city.
(35:35):
This would mean that DC would have no mayor, no
city council, and the only people who would decide how
DC is run are Trump and a small handful of
commissioners that Trump personally appoints. I think the last time
that DC did not have home rule, it was three people.
None of those people lived in DC. In fact, the
only person who lived in DC who could even potentially
(35:57):
see the impact of their of their leadership was the.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
President, who lived in the White House.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So this would mean that all of DC's services, public schools,
social services, trash pickup, road services, DC, public health, all
of it would be run by Trump personally. To even
get a road repaved in DC would require Congressional oversight.
And we have been through this once before. The last
(36:23):
time that DC did not have home rule and it
was run by the President and Congress, it turned out
that nobody actually wanted to be in control of the
minutia and everyday issues of running a city.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So guess what.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
They basically didn't, and DC was deeply neglected. It was
not a good time for the city, and that is
what Trump has been saying he wants to do. And
the thing is, Trump hates cities, yet here he is
clamoring to run one. And I think that is my
big issue with all of this. I hate how people
on the left, myself very much included, are kind of
(36:59):
playing to Trump's narratives about cities and crime. I find
myself being so reactive combating all of the different lies
that Trump tells about our city being this bombed out,
crime infested hellhole that it's like he pulls me into
playing his game where the only thing I can do
is combat all of these lies. And I'm not actually
(37:22):
telling the truth of the reality that I know to
be true about my own city. Our cities are not
crime infested hellholes. Our cities are great. Our cities are awesome. Washington,
d C. Is a great place to live. People want
to live in cities. If DC was not a good
place to live, my rent would not be so expensive.
(37:42):
People obviously want to be here. New York City is
a great place to live. People want to live there.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
That's why the rent is expensive.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Public transport subways, buses, the Metro are safe and good,
and people use them and rely on them because they
make our lives better.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Chicago is a great place to live. People go to
these cities. People who don't.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Live in these cities get on planes and get in
cars and get on buses to visit these cities because
they want to see them, because those cities are good.
Millions of people choose to live in these cities every
single day and keep moving there despite sky high rent,
despite things like crime being a reality of living in
a city, because they want to live there. If you
(38:25):
are an old racist fuck like Trump or a scared
little boy like these pundits on Fox News who make
a living talking about how terrified they are when they
step onto the asphalt in a city, I can understand
why being in a city might be unfamiliar and scary.
But those of us who live in cities, and those
of us who like cities, and those of us who
respect cities see and understand how.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Silly that is.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Right Wing lawmakers and right link influencers from red States
get on TV or get on the internet and talk.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
About how terrified they are to walk.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Down the streets of DC, a city where me and
the kinds of people that they would probably denigrate as
my blue haired, queer, soy boy art school.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Friends navigate every single day.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Like I thought to I was supposed to be tough guys,
so tough that you completely fall apart with fear when
you step outside in the city that I navigate every.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Single day of my life. We live in cities because
we love culture.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
We love the strangeness of strangers, We love walking, we
love the rush of trying to make it in a
place that is hard. Yes, crime happens in cities, but
crime happens everywhere. And I refuse to be drawn into
a debate that begins and ends about arguing crime statistics,
because this whole thing has never been about crime. It
is and always has been about Trump denigrating cities as
(39:42):
somehow un American.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
But our country was founded in cities, cities.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Like Philadelphia, New York and Boston by people who loved cities.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Cities are good.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Cities are part of how we understand America, and how
we have always understood America. How many movies, books and
songs are about people heading out to the city in
search of something good and something better. In that velvet
underground song rock and Roll, it is a New York
station that saves Jenny's life with the power of rock
and roll from her town where nothing is happening at all. Like,
(40:14):
I'm not going to sit here and let Trump rewrite
the narrative that cities are bad. Women know that cities
are good and have always been good, no matter how
many times Republicans want to how that they don't. If
you need any evidence of that, just look at real
estate prices. So that is my rant about this whole thing. Honestly,
it has been a fucking week here in DC. I've
(40:36):
barely slept. Things are not great here, but I love
my city, even in a time where I feel like
it is tough. I don't know what's next for DC,
but this is still always going to be my home,
and I know that I will outlast Trump here.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
You know. I know that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
And I just think that even at a time where
it feels like our political leaders and elected officials maybe
don't have our backs in the way that we would
like them to have. The one thing I do know
is that I believe in us. I believe in the
power of people. You know, I was telling you about
how on Fourteenth Street they were had a checkpoints set
(41:17):
up of military personnel taking people out of cars. They
also had lines of DC residents lined up that self
organized to stand around and booth those people and make
their displeasure known. I believe in the power of people
like that. And you know, I know that things are
weird and tough right now, but sometimes that's really all
you have. All we have is each other, and so yeah,
(41:38):
times are tough, but cities are forever, cities forever. Got
a story about an interesting thing in tech. I just
want to say hi. You can read just at Hello
at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts for
today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls
on the Internet was created by me Bridge Toad. It's
(41:59):
a production I'm the iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. Edited by
Joey pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
to help us grow, rate and review us on Apple
Podcasts for more podcasts from iHeartRadio check out the iHeartRadio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts.
There Are No Girls on the Internet. As a production
of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridget Todd, and this
is There Are No Girls on the Internet. As some
of you might know, I live in Washington, d C,
our nation's capital, and when I'm not making this podcast,
I also co host a podcast about local DC news
(00:26):
called city Cast DC. So this has been a pretty
difficult week for the country, but especially a difficult time
for my city because Trump announced his administration is taking
over DC's police force and deploying the National Guard. So
I wanted to talk a little bit about what that
means for DC from the perspective of someone who lives here.
(00:47):
There are obviously implications for the whole country from something
like this. Trump himself has even said that this is
just the beginning and he wants to do similar power
grabs in cities across the country. But I really want
to talk about it from my perspective as somebody who
lives in DC and is experiencing the impacts of these
recent changes. There are definitely some tech and media implications
(01:08):
for the kinds of issues that we cover on the show,
which I'll definitely get into, but mostly this just feels
like an attack on my hometown. So it's pretty personal
for me. By the way, if you hear sirens or
helicopters while I'm recording, that's just my new reality now,
So not much I can do about it, but I'll
do my best. So this feels personal because you know,
(01:29):
DC is my home. I've lived in other places. I've
lived in San Francisco and Brooklyn and a few other places,
but DC is really where I'm from. My late mother,
God Rest her soul, did her medical residency here at
Children's Hospital in DC. I taught English classes to undergraduates
at Howard University. I've made lifelong friends here. I've worked
one hundred different jobs here. I fell in love here,
(01:49):
had my heart broken here. DC is where I have
lived the longest and is where I will always return
to because it's my home. My situation is a little
bit unusual because d C has a reputation as a
transient city, the kind of place where people move for
a few years for a job or an internship.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
Or school and then leave.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
People move to DC and might not have a ton
of investment in the city long term, or they might
move here and have no idea about DC's very complex history,
which you really need to understand to truly understand what
if happening right now with Trump's threats to DC.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
One weird quirk about DC is that people who aren't.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
From here or don't live here, tend to really only
think about it as a seat of national power. They
sometimes forget that there's about seven hundred thousand or so
people who live here who under all of these national
political issues really playing out in our backyard, yet who
have less electoral power and less agency because we're not
(02:45):
a state, and it's a really big problem. So where
you live, if you're listening from the United States, assuming
you don't live in DC like I do, decisions about
how your state is run or how your local tax
dollars are spent probably lie with your local and state leaders.
But that is not really the case for me and
other residents of DC. We have this weird hybrid situation
where there is some local control, but ultimately Congress has
(03:08):
authority over everything. That same Congress that could not even
be bothered to pass the city's budget before going on
a recess, causing chaos in every agency that has to
plan for picking up garbage or fixing potholes or keeping
the libraries and swimming pools open.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
And all of this is.
Speaker 1 (03:23):
Made worse by the fact that DC residents are essentially disenfranchised.
We don't have representatives who can vote in either the
House or the Senate, even though we pay taxes just
like every other American. We have less electoral power and
less agency because we're not a state. Our license plates
here in DC say taxation without representation, kind of Aalian
(03:45):
cheek reference to the Revolutionary War era rallying cry against
the British Parliament. A not so fun fact about DC
is that DC residents only got the right to vote
in presidential elections in nineteen sixty one. So when people
say things like call your representative or call your elected
official to oppose XYZ, here in.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
D C we have no one to call.
Speaker 1 (04:06):
Our congressional representative Eleanor Holmes Norton cannot vote on bills
being considered by the full House, so we don't really
have a say or a voice the same way that
folks in other parts of the country do. So all
of this background matters for how Trump has been able
to threaten DC. Even before this week, he spent a
lot of this campaign and first administration really just talking
(04:28):
crap about my city. And finally, earlier this week he
announced big plans to take over DC. He really likes
to say that he has taken over DC, but you
know who's a serial liar, so no one should be
surprised to find out that that isn't actually true. The
background of this is a little bit complicated, but the
quick and dirty version is that d C has had
(04:48):
what's called home rule, or the ability for DC to
govern itself, since the nineteen seventies, thanks to the Home
Rule Act. So even though DC is not a state,
our local government and leaders can still make decisions about
what happens here in the district. When the Home Rule
Act passed, it was a win for local control and democracy,
but it was also an acknowledgment by Congress that the
minutia of running a city is best left to the
(05:10):
folks who live there. So, to be clear, as of today,
home rule for d C still stands. It's still the
law of the land. So if you hear folks saying
that Trump has taken over DC, that's not exactly right,
and that distinction matters. Trump has taken over DC's police,
our local police force Metropolitan Police Department or MPD, but
(05:32):
not the city itself. But even still, Trump just taking
over MPD our police force is still very very bad.
So let's talk about exactly what's going on here in DC.
So here's the basics of what's going on. On Monday,
the Trump administration announced that they were federalizing DC's police force,
(05:53):
the Metropolitan Police Department or MPD. They also announced that
the National Guard would be deployed in DC. Now, he
is in a state, but it does have a national
Guard that Trump, and only Trump has authority over. Trump
is also sending in National Guard from other states into DC.
To do this, Trump evokes Section seven forty of the
Home Rule Act, which allows for the president to take
(06:15):
over MPD for forty eight hours, with possible extensions to
thirty days during times of emergencies. To do it for
any longer than thirty days requires congressional approval, which, let's
be real, I honestly don't think would be difficult for
Trump to achieve. I cannot overstate how unprecedented this is.
No president has done this before ever. So all of
(06:36):
this means that about eight hundred and fifty officers and
agents took part in what they called a massive law
enforcement surge across DC, with about one hundred to two
hundred soldiers expected to be out on the streets at
any given time. Why well, if you take Trump at
his word, he says, this whole thing is about crime. Honestly,
I don't even really like to give a lot of
(06:57):
credence to the claims about this whole thing being about crime,
because anyone paying attention can probably see that that is
not what this is about. So it is true that
DC did have a spike in crime in twenty twenty three,
but since then, crime has steadily gone down in DC.
But if you watched Trump's rambling, sprawling press conference where
(07:18):
he talked about everything from repaving DC streets to redoing
the ballroom in the White House to transuse in sports,
almost every stat that Trump through that about crime in
DC was a lie, misleading, or extremely cherry picked to
paint a portrait of crime being out of control in
DC when it simply isn't. It's almost not even worth
(07:39):
calling out all the different instances that he misled people.
But here's just defu to give you a sense. So
Trump said that crime was getting worse in DC, that's
a lie. A recent Department of Justice report shows that
violent crime is down thirty five percent in twenty twenty three,
returning to the previous trend of decreasing crime, that puts
the district's violent crime rate at its lowest in thirty years.
(08:01):
That report shows that when compared to the twenty twenty
three numbers, homicides are down thirty two percent, armed carjackings
are down fifty three percent, and assault with the dangerous
weapon are down twenty seven percent. He also said that
the murders in twenty twenty three in DC reached the
highest rate. This is me quoting him probably ever going
back twenty five years, but that they didn't know what
(08:22):
that means because the data just goes back twenty five years.
And so when I watched this press are in real time,
I was thinking, Oh, I guess he's trying to say that,
you know, we've only been collecting this data for the
last twenty five years. Before then, we don't really have records.
But then when I actually sat down to think about it,
twenty five years ago was the year two thousand? Does
(08:42):
Trump think that crime data was not being collected in
the year two thousand?
Speaker 2 (08:47):
It absolutely was. So that was just another lie.
Speaker 1 (08:50):
And if people know one thing about DC is that
DC in the eighties and nineties crime was genuinely quite bad.
This was during the crack epidemic that hit DC very hard.
The city's own crime statistics, which we have from the
nineteen seventies, eighties, and nineties, show that back then, when
the population of DC was smaller, there were much higher
(09:11):
numbers of homicides. So not only is that all a lie,
it's also a weird, obvious lie where when you hear
it you think, okay, sure, but then when you think
about it for just a couple of seconds, you realize
how strange and obvious.
Speaker 2 (09:26):
And glaring of a lie that is.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
I almost wonder if Trump really does think that crime
statistics were not being collected in the year two thousand
and just anecdotally. I've lived here more or less my
entire adult life. Crime ebbs and flows, it is.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Part of city life. I understand that, however, crime in
DC right now is not out of control. It just isn't.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
I go for walks by myself, I go out at night,
and I feel safe because this is where I live.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
It feels safe to me. Let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
At her back. Now, I've heard a lot of people
say that this entire thing is a response to the
attack on Edward Chorstein, also known as the former staffer
in Elon Musk's doge department Big Balls. Big Balls was
(10:34):
allegedly attacked on the street in DC thanks to Elon Musk,
a one man misinformation super spreader. There has been a
lot of inaccurate information about the facts of what exactly
happened in that situation, so I'm not going to really
get into that. However, this image of big Balls bloodied
on the streets of DC created a very visceral image
(10:57):
of crime in DC. I think this is the thing
about crime, which is that it doesn't really matter if
all of the stats, all of the data, and all
the evidence suggest oh, crime is going down. If you
have one visceral image of a bloody nineteen year old.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Or one video, one viral video of like a looted
out CVS.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
This has actually caused a bit of a I don't know,
a personal crisis of confidence because as someone who has
spent my entire career advocating for the importance of truth
and facts and media, the whole thing just makes me
wonder if we truly are like beyond facts, if facts
simply do not matter anymore. The crime rate can be
(11:40):
going down by every measure, but people still have an
emotionally charged photo or a video, and whatever reality that
piece of media affirms is the only reality that matters.
And I've realized that I've really been trying to combat
the true siness. I know that's not a word, but
allow me that of the emotions with actual facts, and
(12:04):
it's not working because those facts just don't work anymore.
It's been a whole thing I've been wrestling with. So anyway,
back to Big Balls, so I totally get why people
think that the attack on him is what sparked all
of this. I've seen this framing online a lot that
Big Balls got beat up by some girls and Elon
Musk had to ask Daddy Trump to take over DC
(12:26):
because of it. But I will say that Trump has
been talking about taking over MPD for a very long
time before Elon Musk was ever even in the White House.
He referenced it some during his first administration, but for
the most part back then he more or less ignored
DC's local issues. And then he really kicked it up
(12:46):
a notch during his second campaign. He actually started out
his second administration right when he was in office in
January with threatening to take over DC and MPD or
Mayor Muriel Bowser did not make certain concessions which will
get into it moment. He also threatened to take over
DC when another former Trump administration staffer, Mike Gill was
shot him killed during a carjacking Back in February, Trump
(13:09):
made those same threats of taking over MPD. So Big
Balls might have been a convenient timing or a good
excuse to actually move forward at a time when Trump
was eager to talk about anything other than his friendship
with Jeffrey Epstein. But I guess I would say I
would push back a bit on narratives that suggest that
big Balls got attacked and that's why Trump is taking
(13:30):
over MPD, because I don't really think it paints the
full story of the fact that this has been a
long time coming to anybody paying attention to the conversation
that Trump is having about DC. So if it's not
really about crime, then what is it really about? Well,
these are my opinions. First, I think with Trump, the
overarching theme is always punishment. Listen, nobody not votes for
(13:54):
Republicans like DC does not vote for Republicans.
Speaker 2 (13:57):
Like if you've ever.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Seen that map of who voted for Ronald Reagan back
in nineteen eighty four, the entire map is just one
big blotch of full solid red, which is so unusual,
and there's just two splotches of blue where they voted
for Mondale and not Reagan. Minnesota and d C right,
and so rejecting Republicans has always been our thing in DC,
(14:21):
and especially so for Trump.
Speaker 2 (14:23):
DC overwhelmingly did not vote for Trump. Trump did not
even win DC's Republican primary, Nikki Hayley did. We could
not be making it any more clear that we do
not like him here, and so I think that that's
one big reason why you have Trump taking such a
hostile stance against this city from day one, because we
didn't vote for him. We don't like him.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
I think that that's also why you saw him start
out his administration with these horrible attacks on federal workers.
I think a class of people that he senses as
being overwhelmingly educated and also overwhelmingly not for him. I
think the first and foremost thing with Trump is always
going to be retribution. But I also think it is
(15:05):
clearly about mounting federal takeovers starting with Democrat run cities,
and also, let's be real cities with black and brown
political leadership and populations. The cities that he called out
by name during his rambling press conference on Monday as
places that he was looking to take over next were
cities like Baltimore, Chicago, you know, cities that have big,
(15:28):
booming black and brown populations and black mayors. It's just
incredibly clear what is going on here, and it's not crime.
It's black and brown leadership. Trump hates it and wants
to destroy it wherever he can. And unfortunately, because d
C is unlike any other place in the United States
and not being a state, Trump has a lot more
authority here in DC than he would anywhere else.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
In the country.
Speaker 1 (15:52):
How else do I know this is not about crime? Well,
the Trump administration recently made drastic cuts to DC security funding.
Famous Urban Security Fund cut funds for DC to twenty
five point two million from the fiscal year twenty twenty five.
Homeland Security Grant program, which is only a little more
than half of what DC received in twenty twenty four,
doesn't really seem like the behavior of an administration that
(16:14):
is super worried about the crime and the district to
almost have the amount of money that you spend on
preventing crime in the district. And also if you were
genuinely worried about effectively combating crime in the district and
not worried about, say, having big shows of military and
police forces and have it be a big flashy thing.
(16:34):
If you genuinely were caring about combating crime, you would
probably not be using federal agents who are trained to
combat things like organized crime and other kinds of federal concerns.
Those are not going to be the people who are
most useful as officers trying to stop the kind of
crime that DC has, like walking the streets as beat comps.
(16:56):
One of the points that are Mayor Muriel Bowser has
made is that Trump bringing in federal officers and military
personnel who don't know DC law, because why would they
They don't work here and are not trained in DC's
community policing protocols. He's also bringing in military personnel. They
are not meant to be dealing with civilians and walking
(17:16):
a beat on the streets of DC. But that is
exactly what they are doing right outside my apartment.
Speaker 2 (17:21):
Right now.
Speaker 1 (17:22):
I mentioned our mayor, Mriel Bowser. I feel like I
should talk a bit about her. If you don't live
in DC, you're probably like, who is this person? This
is not a name that I recognize. I have been
low key kind of defending the mayor. If you heard
me on the Cool Zone podcast, it could happen here.
I've actually taken a little bit of heat for some
of my defenses of our mayor. Listen, I have a
(17:45):
lot of critiques about DC's mayor, just like anybody would
of their political leaders.
Speaker 2 (17:49):
If you want to know my thoughts on Meriel Bowser,
I'll be happy to tell you.
Speaker 1 (17:53):
However, the point that I have been making for the
last few months is that Mayor Bowser is in a
position that no other elected official in the country is in.
She is navigating something that no other elected official in
the United States has to navigate. Because she's mayor of
a city that is not a state. She essentially has
to navigate this public relationship with an unstable, lying, racist,
(18:17):
fascist in such a way that it will hopefully end
with what is best for our city taking place, which,
in my defenses of her, I guess I basically just
feel that we should own that that is a reality, right,
and that's a complicated thing to have to navigate. During
Trump's first administration, Bowser was really taking a defiant stance.
(18:38):
She did things like painting Black Lives Matter outside of
the White House, for instance. But this time around we
saw a very different public positioning from the mayor. She
took this stance of appeasement and contrition with Trump very early.
I suspect in the hope that they could play nice
and Trump would just sort of ignore sees local issues.
(19:01):
When Trump returned to office in January, two of the
early things that he demanded our mayor do was tear
up Black Lives Matter Plaza Boulevard outside of the White
House and remove encampments of unhoused people at Trump's direction.
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Which she did very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
But none of that, none of that whole song and
dance that she did of appeasing Trump and doing what
he wanted her to do, avoided the outcome that we
are seeing this week of Trump federalizing the police force.
She had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions in
an attempt to avoid this outcome. Although to be clear
DC still has home Rool for now, so that horrible,
(19:37):
horrible outcome has not yet come to fruition. But I
think it's a good example of why appeasing a fascist
doesn't work, and it's disappointing that we have to keep
learning that lesson over and over and over again. And
I have to say I've been a little disappointed with
the way that the mayor is responding to the takeover
of MPD. She basically has been on record as saying
(19:58):
this might be a good sing for the city to
have more police and have military personnel walking around. This
could be a good thing. Something to really note is
that the first messages out of our Mayor's office when
this went down was that they were saying they were
not going to be mounting any kind of legal challenge
to what the Trump administration is doing in DC because
they did not think they would be able to legally
(20:19):
challenge anything because the Trump administration did everything buy the book.
That is pretty different from what we saw from Trump's
actions earlier in the administration, when it seemed like they
were just throwing stuff at the wall to see what
would stick and what would be challenged in court. He
did this takeover of DC's police force legally to the
(20:40):
lecture to the point where it was not able to
be challenged at all legally, which is pretty telling. It
wasn't until I think yesterday, on some kind of a
webinar about these changes, that the mayor said anything really
critical about what was happening. She called it a quote
authoritarian push, but really barely mentioned Trump by name in
any of.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Her public comments.
Speaker 1 (21:01):
Now it's possible that she might just be trying to
further appease Trump to stave off further threats on DC's
home rule, which I don't know, maybe is a strategy,
but in my heart, the way that this is coming
off to me, it just feels like we don't have
a voice championing us, and in a moment of crisis,
(21:22):
that's really what you want, whether that person can actually
do anything, you do want someone who seems to be
like there, they have your back and they're advocating for you.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
And personally, I have not felt like that at all
right now.
Speaker 1 (21:34):
The only thing I feel like we have is ourselves
as each other is organizers. I feel like our elected
officials have kind of abandoned us, both the mayor and
the city Council have been pretty quiet on any criticism
of this takeover. Our congressional Representative Eleanor Holmes Norton has
also kind of stayed out of it.
Speaker 2 (21:52):
She has a.
Speaker 1 (21:53):
Long history of being a civil rights activist going back
decades who has really thought hard and champion DC's autonomy. However,
she is also the second oldest member of Congress, and
so there's lots of questions about whether or not we
actually have the leadership that can support DC at a
time when we clearly need the support and the backbone.
(22:15):
And again, I get that some of this might be
good strategy. I'm sure somebody out there listening is like, oh,
maybe they're you know, this is all part of their strategy.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
But if I'm being honest, it just feels really shitty.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
Part of this might be my own emotionality, because this
week has been a doozy. It is a doozy to
walk around your city and see military personnel harassing people.
It's a doozy to feel like you don't have a
say and what's happening on your own streets and your
own block, on your own city, And so I want
to own that like this this could be just my
(22:51):
own emotionality of the situation. I do think that even
if it's meaningless postering, I would have liked to have
seen elected officials in DC who at least made me
feel like they were standing up to Trump, if even
if in reality there wasn't much they could do, if
it was just words. It really made me realize, even
(23:12):
if words are just words.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Sometimes you want to hear the words.
Speaker 1 (23:15):
I don't know, maybe it sounds silly, but I was
a little bit disappointed, like you are looking for a
message of strength and leadership, like somebody's got this, and
then just.
Speaker 2 (23:23):
Hearing crickets doesn't feel great. And I do also want
to own that.
Speaker 1 (23:28):
Unfortunately, the reality is that the mayor of DC has
a lot less power and protection than someone like Gavin Newsom,
who has two stanators behind him when he took a
defiant stance against Trump, when Trump deployed the National Guard
in LA earlier this summer.
Speaker 2 (23:45):
Even folks like JB.
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Pritzker or Wes Moore, they're all governors of states and
that statehood gives them a lot more protection and autonomy,
and here in DZ we simply do not have that.
And I think when we talk about the importance of
stuff like statehood. It is so easy to just get
caught up and talking about it as a civil rights
issue or a racial justice issue or a democracy issue,
(24:06):
which it absolutely is. But statehood also really matters for
how we are able to combat this kind of chaos
and hostility. Otherwise DC residents like me end up feeling
like we were being held hostage by a madman. More
after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
(24:38):
All of this just goes to show that DC needed
full statehood yesterday. We needed full statehood before this, ever,
before Trump was ever even in the White House. We
needed it since forever. And we don't have that. And
until we have that, this kind of chaos that Trump
has been able to unleash on our city is not
going to end.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
And I want to talk a bit.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
About what I'm seeing as a DC resident here on
the ground, because things in DC are chaotic and grim.
We've seen Order Patrol, Ice, DA, FBI, and the National
Guard walking the streets of DC. Anecdotally, I can say
I have seen them in places that to me really
don't make a ton of sense, like patrolling the super
(25:20):
safe Georgetown neighborhood at ten o'clock at night when it's
essentially a ghost town, or patrolling the National Mall at
two pm on a weekday. There was also an ICE
rate at the Home Depot out of Northeast This week too,
the DC Police put out an executive order saying that
the DC Police were now going to be coordinating with
ICE so that even if they stop somebody and that
(25:41):
stop does not end with an arrest or anybody in custody,
they would still be allowed to alert ICE about that
person and their whereabouts, which I think gives you a
sense of the kind of coordination they're building into all
of this. Last night, there was a huge display of
force and arrests right on my block, which is essentially residential.
I counted over a dozen police vehicles, including unmarked SUVs
(26:03):
and Border Patrol pickup trucks. They arrested people who were
just coming out of a grocery store at a lot
of these big shows of force have been around arrests
for very low level offenses, things like people smoking weed
in public which here in DC possession of marijuana is decriminalized,
or open containers like drinking in parks, or fair evasions
(26:24):
on buses. The kinds of offenses that it makes absolutely
no sense to have FBI agents arresting people for It
seems like we now have a bit more information about
the category of arrests that were made, and they can
kind of make sense of some of the facts and
figures and stats coming out of the White House about
what they've been doing in DC this week. You know,
they've been putting out these big statistics about all of
(26:47):
these arrests that they've come into the city and been
able to make this week. So far, according to my sources,
in total, since this went down on Monday, they have
made about one hundred arrests. However, that is about average
for the amount of arrest that DC would have made
without the Trump administration being in charge.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
So that means after all of.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
This, they are not even really getting more lawbreakers off
the streets. So again, if this whole thing is meant
to be about crime, which Trump says it is, what
exactly is the point. As I'm recording this tonight, I've
been reading up on updates about a checkpoints they set
up on fourteenth and U Street, which is kind of
a busy corridor with lots of bars and restaurants and
chops where they've apparently been stopping every car just trying
(27:28):
to drive by. I don't know what they're looking for,
and honestly, they probably don't even either, as did an
interview with a local reporter from the Washington Post who
told me that the majority of the stops were for
things like folks not wearing seatbelts, or broken tail lights,
or having expired tags, you know, real violent crime.
Speaker 2 (27:45):
It just feels like a good old fashioned dragnet, which
is meant to be illegal.
Speaker 1 (27:49):
And I think that tonight Wednesday night, was really the
first look into what all of this is actually going
to look like in DC, things like checkpoints, disruption, and
a real general fear in citizens.
Speaker 2 (28:03):
I als also an image.
Speaker 1 (28:04):
Of a block totally blocked off by about six police cars,
all trying to make an arrest of one person. And
oftentimes you have these intergovernmental federal level military personnel really
just standing around. I think they're meant to be I
don't know, intimidating or something. They're just standing there. I
(28:26):
always wonder, like, how much money are we paying to
pay these people to stand around in an empty neighborhood
at ten o'clock at night. I think the point of
all of this is really to inflame tensions and have
there be chaos on the streets now for nothing. But
we're also in the middle of a pretty bad heat
wave here in DC, so tempers are already hot. Now
(28:46):
you've got law enforcement, law enforcement that are not necessarily
trained on DC's protocols, some of whom are military and
thus not even really trained on dealing with civilians. And
my biggest worry is that all of this is going
to have result in some doing something stupid and the
whole thing will turn into a powder keg. And I
have to imagine that that is the outcome that Trump
wants as well.
Speaker 2 (29:07):
I think that is the point of all of this.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
This is also a direct attack on the unhoused community
here in DC. We've already seen horrible footage of unhoused
people being taken away by police I'm not even sure
to wear. Yesterday, the White House said that they were
going to start forcibly removing unhoused people and forcing them
to go to either shelters, hospitals, or jail or face fines,
(29:29):
which I don't know how finding somebody who is living on.
Speaker 2 (29:32):
The streets works.
Speaker 1 (29:33):
But Okay, the issue is DC does not have a
ton of shelter beds, and not every unhoused person is
going to want to go to a shelter. Does it
make sense for every unhoused person to go to a shelter.
I get that this has been an issue long before
Trump ever got involved, but his solution is just a
brute force removal of people. He doesn't really have a
clear plan for where these people will go. My guess
(29:55):
is that quite a few will end up in jail,
a strategy that is not only incredibly expensive as a
strategy that has been proven over and over again to
also be ineffective. And I think that is a big
part of the issue here. DC is a city, and
in any city you're going to have issues like homelessness
and crime, and it's just the reality of life in
the city. Getting people housed takes time, It is a process.
(30:18):
Just wanting to quickly move people who might not have
anywhere else to go because they look unseemly, as Trump said,
is not solving the problem. All you are doing is
traumatizing people who are already extremely vulnerable and forcing them
to move someplace without a clear plan. And the sad
thing is with the money that we're paying to have
federal agents take away unhoused people. We could probably house
(30:41):
every unhoused person in DC. But again, it is not
really about any of that. It is not about actually
solving problems. It's about the show, the posturing. Okay, so
that is my rant. If you're listening and you're not
in BC, you might be thinking what can people do?
What can I do? You're thinking of that because you're
a good person. You're listening to podcast. I appreciate it. So,
(31:03):
as I have made clear, we do not have meaningful
congressional representation in DC. So we need people who don't
live in DC to be our voice to advocate on
our behalf. So contact your representatives and advocate for full
statehood for DC. Republicans like Mike Lee from Utah have
(31:23):
introduced the Bowser Act YEP, an act disparagingly named after
DC's mayor that would strip DC of home rule. I
don't have anyone that I can call to make my
opinions known about how bad that is. So if you
are listening, call your representative and advocate for the self
determination of folks in DC. Also follow local organizations like
(31:47):
Free DC. Free DC is an advocacy organization that is
advocating for self determination for folks in DC. They've been
around it since the sixties, so very long history of
doing good work in DC. I did an interview for
Citycast DC with an organizer from Free DC and they
told me they were very prepared for this outcome. They
had a census was coming and they've been preparing for
(32:08):
it for a while. And what they're focused on right
now is really making sure that DC residents know their rights,
know that they do not have to consent to certain
interactions with police, and running trainings on things like cop watching.
You know how to film and how to watch police
out in the streets. Also, please make sure that you're
sharing good, accurate information. This is a little bit tricky
(32:30):
because I get the impetus for wanting to share things
when you see them, if they scratch a part of
your brain, whether they're true or not, I.
Speaker 2 (32:41):
Totally get it.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
However, I think in times of crisis, what people need
is facts. What people need is confirmation. And I've just
seen a lot of people, people that I trust, people
that I respect, plan a little fast and plan a
little loose with the kind of information that they are amplifying.
Right now, So I think it is incredibly important to
be precise right now in this time of chaos and
(33:03):
confusion and change. I have seen so much misinformation floating
around about what is actually happening in DC right now,
and I guess I would say that what is happening
in DC right now is very bad. It is bad
enough on its own, but Trump has not taken over DC.
Trump has specifically taken over DC's police. There is certainly
(33:25):
a threat of Trump taking over DC because we are
not a state, but that has not happened. I think
it is important, especially during times of confusion and crisis,
to amplify good information and resources, not rumors. Trump and
its fascist enablers they want us scared, they want us confused,
they want us to not know what the truth is,
(33:45):
and we don't have to help add to that kind
of a climate for them. One of the narratives I've
seen floated a lot is that Trump is going to
essentially give DC to billionaire Peter Teel. So the idea
here is that Trump would sell or give DC to
Peter Thiel to create a deregulated so called Freedom City,
(34:05):
which is a very constant talking point of people like
Curtis Jarvin, who is this far right pro authoritarian voice
who is very cozy with the Trump administration. I have
seen this claim all over the internet. I will just
say this, telling people that you believe this is going
to happen is not a resource.
Speaker 2 (34:27):
What people need right now is.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Facts and verified, substantiated information, And I just don't think
it helps people to get on the internet and potentially
spread panic about something that just is not happening today
when we are in a time of change and confusion
and chaos already. I don't think that there's never any
value in speculating about what's next. I think we should
(34:50):
be keeping an eye on the future. But I have
seen this thing where I think people are really keen
to be the first to amplify narrative or a claim
that they think is going to get lots of engagement
that feel sexy and flashy, and I completely get that. However,
people also need facts and resources, and I understand that
(35:12):
that's a lot less sexy and a lot less flashy,
but that's what actually was going to help people right now,
and that's what people should be amplifying. So let's talk
about that. Let's talk about what could be next what
could be coming down the line? So, first, can Trump
take over DC? Trump has said time and time again
that he wants to revoke DC's home Rule and have
the federal government dictate how DC is run as a city.
(35:35):
This would mean that DC would have no mayor, no
city council, and the only people who would decide how
DC is run are Trump and a small handful of
commissioners that Trump personally appoints. I think the last time
that DC did not have home rule, it was three people.
None of those people lived in DC. In fact, the
only person who lived in DC who could even potentially
(35:57):
see the impact of their of their leadership was the.
Speaker 2 (36:00):
President, who lived in the White House.
Speaker 1 (36:03):
So this would mean that all of DC's services, public schools,
social services, trash pickup, road services, DC, public health, all
of it would be run by Trump personally. To even
get a road repaved in DC would require Congressional oversight.
And we have been through this once before. The last
(36:23):
time that DC did not have home rule and it
was run by the President and Congress, it turned out
that nobody actually wanted to be in control of the
minutia and everyday issues of running a city.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
So guess what.
Speaker 1 (36:36):
They basically didn't, and DC was deeply neglected. It was
not a good time for the city, and that is
what Trump has been saying he wants to do. And
the thing is, Trump hates cities, yet here he is
clamoring to run one. And I think that is my
big issue with all of this. I hate how people
on the left, myself very much included, are kind of
(36:59):
playing to Trump's narratives about cities and crime. I find
myself being so reactive combating all of the different lies
that Trump tells about our city being this bombed out,
crime infested hellhole that it's like he pulls me into
playing his game where the only thing I can do
is combat all of these lies. And I'm not actually
(37:22):
telling the truth of the reality that I know to
be true about my own city. Our cities are not
crime infested hellholes. Our cities are great. Our cities are awesome. Washington,
d C. Is a great place to live. People want
to live in cities. If DC was not a good
place to live, my rent would not be so expensive.
(37:42):
People obviously want to be here. New York City is
a great place to live. People want to live there.
Speaker 2 (37:48):
That's why the rent is expensive.
Speaker 1 (37:49):
Public transport subways, buses, the Metro are safe and good,
and people use them and rely on them because they
make our lives better.
Speaker 2 (37:58):
Chicago is a great place to live. People go to
these cities. People who don't.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Live in these cities get on planes and get in
cars and get on buses to visit these cities because
they want to see them, because those cities are good.
Millions of people choose to live in these cities every
single day and keep moving there despite sky high rent,
despite things like crime being a reality of living in
a city, because they want to live there. If you
(38:25):
are an old racist fuck like Trump or a scared
little boy like these pundits on Fox News who make
a living talking about how terrified they are when they
step onto the asphalt in a city, I can understand
why being in a city might be unfamiliar and scary.
But those of us who live in cities, and those
of us who like cities, and those of us who
respect cities see and understand how.
Speaker 2 (38:47):
Silly that is.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
Right Wing lawmakers and right link influencers from red States
get on TV or get on the internet and talk.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
About how terrified they are to walk.
Speaker 1 (38:56):
Down the streets of DC, a city where me and
the kinds of people that they would probably denigrate as
my blue haired, queer, soy boy art school.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Friends navigate every single day.
Speaker 1 (39:07):
Like I thought to I was supposed to be tough guys,
so tough that you completely fall apart with fear when
you step outside in the city that I navigate every.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
Single day of my life. We live in cities because
we love culture.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
We love the strangeness of strangers, We love walking, we
love the rush of trying to make it in a
place that is hard. Yes, crime happens in cities, but
crime happens everywhere. And I refuse to be drawn into
a debate that begins and ends about arguing crime statistics,
because this whole thing has never been about crime. It
is and always has been about Trump denigrating cities as
(39:42):
somehow un American.
Speaker 2 (39:43):
But our country was founded in cities, cities.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
Like Philadelphia, New York and Boston by people who loved cities.
Speaker 2 (39:51):
Cities are good.
Speaker 1 (39:52):
Cities are part of how we understand America, and how
we have always understood America. How many movies, books and
songs are about people heading out to the city in
search of something good and something better. In that velvet
underground song rock and Roll, it is a New York
station that saves Jenny's life with the power of rock
and roll from her town where nothing is happening at all. Like,
(40:14):
I'm not going to sit here and let Trump rewrite
the narrative that cities are bad. Women know that cities
are good and have always been good, no matter how
many times Republicans want to how that they don't. If
you need any evidence of that, just look at real
estate prices. So that is my rant about this whole thing. Honestly,
it has been a fucking week here in DC. I've
(40:36):
barely slept. Things are not great here, but I love
my city, even in a time where I feel like
it is tough. I don't know what's next for DC,
but this is still always going to be my home,
and I know that I will outlast Trump here.
Speaker 2 (40:52):
You know. I know that.
Speaker 1 (40:54):
And I just think that even at a time where
it feels like our political leaders and elected officials maybe
don't have our backs in the way that we would
like them to have. The one thing I do know
is that I believe in us. I believe in the
power of people. You know, I was telling you about
how on Fourteenth Street they were had a checkpoints set
(41:17):
up of military personnel taking people out of cars. They
also had lines of DC residents lined up that self
organized to stand around and booth those people and make
their displeasure known. I believe in the power of people
like that. And you know, I know that things are
weird and tough right now, but sometimes that's really all
you have. All we have is each other, and so yeah,
(41:38):
times are tough, but cities are forever, cities forever. Got
a story about an interesting thing in tech. I just
want to say hi. You can read just at Hello
at tegody dot com. You can also find transcripts for
today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No Girls
on the Internet was created by me Bridge Toad. It's
(41:59):
a production I'm the iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. Edited by
Joey pat I'm your host, Bridget Todd. If you want
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