The Democrat mayor of Washington, D.C., Muriel Bowser, has bad news for the liberals upset about President Donald Trump’s crime crackdown.
Bowser said she won’t oppose the operation because her “hands are tied.”
At a press conference on Monday, Trump announced he was sending in the National Guard and taking control of the city’s police force to restore public order.
More than 100 people have been arrested since Trump started his crime-fighting operation.
The effort has seen 800 National Guard troops deployed to the streets of the capital.
Bowser’s tone has been noticeably measured compared to most in her party.
Most Democrats have condemned Trump’s takeover as an unacceptable assault on D.C.
While the city has limited autonomy under the Home Rule Act, Bowser has noted that she is bound by that same law to submit to federal authority when the president declares an “emergency.”
In a statement, Bowser said:
“The Home Rule Charter requires the mayor to provide the services of MPD during special conditions of an emergency.
“And we will follow the law.
“Though there’s a question about the subjectivity of that declaration.”
The mayor has called Trump’s push “authoritarian” and she insists that crime has improved compared to 2023, when the murder rate was at a 20-year high.
But she is not putting up much of a fight against Trump’s efforts.
“What I’m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have,” Bowser said to reporters.
The city’s police union has endorsed the crackdown, as Slay News reported earlier.
The union accused the Metropolitan Police Department of “deliberately falsifying crime data, creating a false narrative of reduced crime while communities suffer.”
Trump’s federal intervention was triggered by a brutal assault on a former DOGE staffer, Edward Coristine, by a group of teenage carjackers.
The attack highlighted the ongoing scourge of crime in D.C., which has a higher murder rate than some cities in the Third World.
Trump has long decried the state of America’s capital as an embarrassment.
With his crime crackdown, Trump has laid a trap for Democrats, one which they appear to be walking directly into by downplaying rational concerns about safety.
Mayor Bowser is trying to thread a needle by not actively embracing Trump, but not pushing away federal assistance either.
Of course, Bowser is literally correct that her hands are tied, but she must be glad that is the case.
She clearly understands that crime is still too high, and that it would look bad to stand in Trump’s way on this issue.
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