On The Editors today, Rich is joined by Charlie, Noah, and Audrey, and they discuss the uproar over Trump’s decision to call in the National Guard to D.C. Audrey, who lives in the District, acknowledges that “the crime situation is not great.”
“It’s of course a lot better than the ’90s,” she says, “but like any big city, there are different tiers of crime.”
They are as follows: “You have gang violence and semi-organized crime, like the drug trade, of course. You’ve got tons of homeless people and vagrancy, especially in the D.C. Metro. Lots of young kids on bikes who like to carjack and mug people, harass people on the Metro, hop the turnstiles and, you know, fare evasion. And then you’ve also got the migrant moped delivery drivers who ignore traffic laws.”
Despite what Democrats are saying, Trump hasn’t crossed any legal lines yet, and as Charlie lays out, “In a sense, Washington, D.C., is the Northwest Territory. It is a federal location. It is the preserve of the federal government. And there is nothing that the city council, the mayor, or anyone else can do about it if the federal government changes the political structure of the federal district in this manner.”
Could Congress “take back authority and rule it directly”? Yes, says Charlie, “it can. Would there be a problem with that? I don’t have one. I think that Washington, D.C., should be a lot smaller. I certainly don’t think it should be a state. But it is supposed to be the place where the federal government operates and not much else besides.”
From a public image perspective, Charlie points out that “everyone around the world, if they’ve just watched movies, has seen the White House and Congress and the Jefferson Memorial and the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and the Potomac. And for this to be the norm in a country of this quality and wealth and political stability is quite embarrassing.”
“I think that, in the grand tradition of American constitutional authority, the Congress, followed by the president, trumps Muriel Bowser and the council.”
The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.