DC Mayor Muriel Bowser, an elected Democrat, reversed her tone towards President Trump’s mobilization of the National Guard to combat crime in her city, calling for residents to protect their city and its autonomy.
Bowser’s 180-degree position change came hours after she appeared to support Trump’s actions to safeguard the crime-plagued capital as she stumped for her party in the 2026 election.
“This is a time where community needs to jump in and we all need to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy, to protect our Home Rule, and get to the other side of this guy, and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push,” Bowser said at a town hall Tuesday, according to CNN.
Bowser, 53, had initially welcomed the National Guard deployment under the president’s Title 32 authority, saying she would work cooperatively with the Trump administration.
“He’s interested in being in neighborhoods, fighting crime in neighborhoods,” she told MSNBC’s “The Weekend,” ahead of Trump’s announcement.
The three-term mayor told reporters Tuesday she wanted to see “how to make the most of the additional officer support.”
Under Trump’s order, the Metropolitan Police Department will be supplemented by personnel from several federal agencies, including the Border Patrol, the FBI, the DEA and US Park Police.
Bowser later argued that the majority of the additional federal agents’ patrol radius would be limited to federal property, like the National Mall.
“My expectation, though it can change, is that they will deploy the Guard on federal properties — that includes parks, monuments, federal buildings,” Bowser said in a conversation with community leaders Tuesday night, posted on X.
National Guard members arrived on the streets of DC on Tuesday afternoon as footage captured Humvees lined up on the side of a road near the Washington Monument.
Only a small fraction of the 800 National Guard members expected to take part in the crime crackdown mission had been mobilized as of Tuesday afternoon, with more expected to deploy in the coming days, a Department of Defense official told the Washington Post.
Trump federalized the DC Metropolitan Police Department’s 3,400-officer force and activated the DC National Guard on Monday, just hours after he directed some 850 federal agents to patrol the streets of the capital as part of a sweeping effort to drive down crime in the district.
DC had the fourth-highest homicide rate among US cities in 2024, according to statistics compiled by the Center for Public Safety Initiatives at Rochester Institute of Technology, with 27.3 murders per 100,000 people.
That’s six times higher than New York City’s rate that year, which reached 4.7 homicides per 100,000 residents — and four times higher than the 7.2 homicides per 100,000 people at the same per capita rate in Los Angeles.
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