D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser defended the city’s handling of crime amid an escalation of threats from President Donald Trump to federalize the nation’s capital.
“We have spent over the last two years driving down violent crime in this city–driving it down to a 30-year low, in fact, over the past year,” Bowser told MSNBC on Saturday. “We have decreased violent crime by 26% [and] the year before that, by 35%.”
Trump railed against D.C.’s crime after a top employee of the White House’s DOGE agency was assaulted last week during an attempted carjacking. As a result, he called for more federal police presence on the streets of the District of Columbia and said that minors as young as 14 years old should be charged as adults.
Over the weekend, the Trump administration deployed up to 120 federal agents, mostly from the FBI, to assist the Metropolitan Police in preventing crimes in D.C., which have largely been carjackings.
On Sunday, the president announced he would hold a press conference at the White House to address D.C.’s crime and the city’s “Beautification.” The announcement fuels speculation that he will deploy the National Guard, which he has the legal authority to do since D.C. is not a state and is locally governed.
However, Bowser pushed back against Trump’s characterizations of D.C., which is a majority Black and Brown city.
“We are not experiencing a crime spike,” said the D.C. mayor, who credited years-long coordination between D.C. city officials and federal agencies in keeping the nation’s capital safe.
During her MSNBC interview, Bowser sought to humanize the city, which has long been a target of Republicans who have threatened to take federal control of D.C. and cast it as poorly run and dangerous to live in. The mayor said D.C. was among “the most beautiful and best cities in the world.”
“It’s well run. We have excellent schools. The number one park system. We have experienced rises in tourism compared to before the pandemic. So people are coming to our capital. They’re starting businesses in our capital, and they’re raising families in our capital,” said Bowser.
“Any comparison to a war-torn country is hyperbolic and false,” she added, referencing White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller’s remark that D.C. is “worse than Baghdad.”
Residents and advocates have long resisted those characterizations and threats as untrue, racialized, and undemocratic, given that D.C. is self-governed under the Home Rule Act.
In a Sunday Truth Social post, Trump suggested he was close to using his federal powers to take control of the nation’s capital. To what degree is unknown.
“The Mayor of D.C., Muriel Bowser, is a good person who has tried, but she has been given many chances, and the Crime Numbers get worse, and the City only gets dirtier and less attractive,” wrote Trump, who also called out the city’s homelessness and demanded that unhoused individuals “move out, IMMEDIATELY.”
Bowser said that if Trump wants to make the city safer, he could take action on the federal level, like ensuring that more prosecutors are hired and more federal judges are confirmed by Congress.
“We have 15 vacancies in the Superior Court, which we need to go down to the Congress for approval. We have two vacancies in the Court of Appeals,” the mayor explained. “Anytime you have a backlog in the courts, you have delayed justice and people are less safe.”
Bowser also touted actions taken by her office and the D.C. City Council, such as changing local criminal laws. She noted the city’s interventions, such as allowing the city to hold violent offenders using guns pre-trial. “We’ve seen shootings and homicides precipitously drop,” she shared.
In his Sunday post, Trump vowed to do in D.C. what he was able to do at the U.S. border since reentering office six months ago.
“Just like I took care of the Border, where you had ZERO Illegals coming across last month, from millions the year before, I will take care of our cherished Capital, and we will make it, truly, GREAT AGAIN!” he wrote.
