Front Burner - Why has Trump taken over D.C.?

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

National Guard troops descended on Washington D.C. after U.S. President Donald Trump vowed on Monday to take back the nation's capital and clear the streets of what he calls "crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor". It comes after the President spent the better part of the last week taking aim at D.C.'s leadership, homeless population and how crime there is "out of control" – a statement that stands in sharp contrast to official figures showing that violent crime in D.C. is at a 30-year low. Since then, in addition to deploying the National Guard, Trump has also taken control of the district's police force.Given that crime is on the decline in D.C., what is this takeover really about? And what could it signal to other cities in Trump's crosshairs? Alex Shephard from The New Republic joins us to make sense of it all.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

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Hi, I'm Allie Jains, filling in for Jamie Poisson. I'm announcing a historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse. This is Liberation Day in D.C. and we're going to take our capital back. We're taking it back. That was Donald Trump on Monday, after he called Washington, D.C., a, quote, lawless city and the crime there, out of control.

Less than a day later, some of the 800 National Guard members deployed by Trump began to descend on the capital. This comes just a couple months after they were sent to Los Angeles to crack down on protests against immigration raids. The White House has also seized control of D.C.'s local police.

and residents of the city are hitting the streets to speak out against the takeover. So you can hear people banging, making noise as they want their voices to be heard. These people are likely residents in D.C. and they're unhappy with how their city has been taken over on federal control. So what's behind Trump's military takeover of Washington? And how might this fit into his broader plans to assert federal authority over other major cities across the country? To help us make sense of all of that, we're joined. again by Alex Shepard, Senior Editor of the New Republic. As ever, Alex, so great to have you here.

That's great to be with you. So President Trump says that he wants to liberate D.C., but I just want to understand how this all started. It's been reported that this could have been sparked, at least in part, by the attempted carjacking of a former Doge staffer named Edward Correstine, nicknamed, I am so sorry, big balls. What happened there? Yeah, the early reports, which are not completely filled in, are that he was basically leaving somewhere with, I think, his girlfriend early in, early in the morning, about 3 a.m. And as he was exiting, this establishment getting into his car,

he was sort of attacked by a group of teenagers. There were reports that it was an attempted carjacking. It may have been. It may have just been that. that they were, you know, they just beat him up. But, you know, there were pictures of it, all of our conservative media. The infamous Doge lieutenant, Big Balls, was just jumped in DC. Big balls bloodied.

The 19-year-old former Doge staff were beaten by a violent mob of minors. He was certainly left bloodied. He had a concussion. Obviously, this came to the attention of Elon Musk, who was tweeting about it very early. A gang of about a dozen young men tried to assault a woman in her car.

Musk says on social media, Edward ran to defend her and was severely beaten to the point of concussion, but he saved her. The president was talking about it. He was left dripping in blood. He thought he was dead with a broken nose and concussion. Can't believe that he's alive. He can't believe it. And it seems like that was one of the sort of two main drivers

that led us here. The other was simply that Donald Trump was in his car, I believe, on the way to his golf course, or one of his golf courses and just sort of passed by a homeless encampment and just decided that enough was enough and that he was going to step in and do something about the rampant lawlessness in Washington, D.C. So how did Trump then use that incident as a springboard to take over D.C. police and send in National Guard troops? Basically, I mean, he has the power to do this and has been sort of let's say kicking the tires of doing it for quite a while. I think that it's been clear that

he's been looking for an excuse to deploy the National Guard in Washington, D.C. for a long time. It's one of a long list of cities that his administration has targeted for what is essentially militarization. So, you know, he basically invoked his authority as the president of the United States because it is a district and not a state. Washington, D.C.'s ability to govern itself is limited. It relies very heavily on the federal government's largesse to supply things like, well, just monetary resources. And there are emergency powers that are granted to it within the Home Relact of 1973 that allowed the president to step in in the case of an emergency. So Trump, as he's done with immigration, has taken a sort of nebulous. And in this case, I think it's frankly

ridiculous to call it an emergency situation, but has invoked emergency powers just based on the perception of an emergency. We're talking on Tuesday afternoon. We're seeing some of those troops arrive in D.C. already. What do we know about how the guard will be used? Well, not a lot right now. I mean, we're expecting them to be sort of deployed throughout the city, whether they do that for optics purposes or in areas in which there are high crime rates

is yet to be seen. If you look at Los Angeles, as the most recent example, so earlier in the summer, there was sort of widespread protests over immigration and customs enforcement, going around and trying to round up a documented immigrants in L.A. People were exercising their First Amendment rights. Protesters sitting cars on fire, dumping bikes and scooters on police cruisers on the highway, law enforcement firing hundreds of flashbags and non-lethal projectiles and making dozens of arrests. There were occasionally sort of moments of property destruction, but mostly

it was just a pretty standard protest. Trump saw this, deployed the National Guard then, even though both the mayor of Los Angeles and the governor of California said that doing so is not necessary. With our orders directed by the president, the Secretary of Defense has mobilized. Right now, it's 4,700 personnel to protect federal agencies, our federal partners, and also to protect all federal assets and federal facilities that are located in the locations where there have been demonstrations lately. And those troops were then sort of deployed around Los Angeles, and they were occasionally sort of spread out, you know, where there were protests.

But for the most part, they were just kind of milling around in highly visible areas. I think the expectation is that's what's going to happen here, that the National Guard troops are there for the appearance of Donald Trump doing something about this horrible crime situation that he keeps describing. But at the end of the day, he's faced with the big problem, which is that, you know, crime in D.C. has been dropping quite steadily. It sort of reached a sort of a relatively high peak by recent standards shortly after the pandemic. But it's fallen by more than 50% since then, violent crime, that is. And, you know, they just did sweeps, I think, over the weekend. And Carolyn Levitt on Monday afternoon, or sorry, Tuesday afternoon, said that approximately

850 officers and agents were surged across the city. They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts. It's not because the criminals in D.C. are all, you know, quaking in fear and hiding out because of this. It's just because the fact of the matter is is that there's not a ton of crime. This is only the beginning. Over the course of the next month, the Trump administration will relentlessly pursue an arrest every violent criminal in the district who breaks the law, undermines public safety, and endangers law-abiding Americans. Trump, you know, as you've been saying, obviously deployed National Guard in L.A. in June. And he also did it in 2020 during the George Floyd.

Floyd protests. But how does that compare to previous presidents? Like how, how unprecedented is what he's doing with the National Guard domestically, you know, against Americans? Yeah, I mean, so there's sort of two ways to answer the question. One is that the National Guard has been deployed in times of unrest before you can think about something like the Ferguson protest in 2014. Governor Jay Nixon anticipating expanded unrest. If the grand jury decides not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed unarmed teen Michael Brown on August 9th. Governor Nixon activating the National Guard to assist the county police with securing Ferguson. You know, Obama, I believe, was supportive of that at the time. He sent Eric Holder over there.

It's not completely uncommon. What is unprecedented is for the National Guard to be deployed in this manner when there is no emergency. I think in a moment of, you know, crime is decreasing right now. There are not widespread protests, you know, in, so to use the Ferguson example, right, the governor will occasionally ask for the National Guard to be deployed in certain situations. In California, the governor and the mayor of Los Angeles were both opposed to this in D.C. Everyone with any power, very much including the mayor, Muriela Bowser, are against this. you know, it's not done to quell anything. It's a symbolic show of force by a president who is privileging his ability to make a public spectacle over his ability to sort of improve public safety.

And I think what you're seeing as well is that, you know, talking to folks in D.C. and lawmakers, you know, there's a lot of anxiety over the presence of armed federal troops or armed troops with federal jurisdiction in the city, understandably. There's a lot of anxiety about the federal government taking over the D.C. police. And, you know, that there is also, certainly when you talk to conservatives, there is anxiety about crime within the city, but that anxiety is not really founded by most statistical evidence. And it certainly is not in any way warranted when you compare it to the historical use of the National Garden of the past. And, you know, it would also say as well that in Los Angeles, there's a lot of dissatisfaction among the National Guard troops that were

deployed there. Because I think for the most part, when these folks are deployed places, it is to help. It is either to, in some cases, in the rare cases, gain control of unruly situations involving their fellow citizens. But for the most part, it's because there's a national disaster. They're there to help. I think what they're not used to is being thrown into a situation in which, you know, the general public, uh, is one, I think very apprehensive about their presence. But, you know, in, in the case of D.C., I think there is a lot of resentment already. And, you know, they're only just showing up right now. Talk to me more about what, what other Democrats have said on, on the other side of that and also, uh, the mayor, Murillo

Bowser. Yeah. So, I mean, in general, I think as has been the case for a lot of issues, I think immigration being the most notable one, you're seeing, I would say, certainly condemnation of this. And there's a lot of Democrats that are out there that are calling it a sort of authoritarian power grab. Mayor Muriela Bowser and her press availability yesterday sort of made similar claims. My message to residents is this. We know that access to our democracy is tenuous. And while this action today is unsettling and unprecedented, I can't say that given some of the rhetoric of the past, that we're totally surprised. The Attorney General of D.C. has been very, very outspoken about it, but he is a sort of rare

exception. Unfortunately, the president's characterizations of what's happening on the ground here in the District of Columbia is not consistent with the facts. we have seen meaningful, significant drops in crimes since I was elected in 2023 when there was a crime spike crimes, violent crimes have consistently gone down every year. A few other examples, Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has been pushing for D.C. to at least, you know, grant full control over, be granted full control over his National Guard

again. But, you know, I think that Democrats are very gun-shunds. shy around messaging about crime and immigration right now and that there's a worry, I think, that if they push back too hard, they say, look, there's no data to support the rising crime here that they will then get pilloried, right, for support, you know, for law, being the party of lawlessness, right? And so they, I think, are walking a tightrope in terms of their messaging where they're saying, well, this is bad, but they're not going as far as to push back on the premise behind it. And talking to people in D.C. over the last couple of days, there is a lot of anger about

that specifically about Merrill Bowser's response, that it is not been fulsome or full-throated enough that it is not going after this as a sort of not just an authoritarian power grab, but, you know, and D.C. is also a very diverse city. So, you know, it's basically that's black and white population is roughly equal. And again, historically, the federal government's control over it has always been tinged with sort of patrician racial attitudes. And I think that there's a lot of anger about that as well, that the people that are going to be, you know, sort of swept up in this. And you're already seeing this, you know, from a lot of the sort of early videos that have been taken by people that are encountering law enforcement officers who've been deployed as part of this, is that, you know,

it's got to be a lot of black and brown people that are targeted. And, you know, I think the Democrats have been very reluctant to talk about the fact that that crime has fallen dramatically in Washington, D.C. that this is not necessary. And again, that Washington, D.C. is capable of governing itself. I think the other point that is all, that I'm also hearing a lot from people in the city is that, you know, Democrats could and, you know, I think many people would argue should have been pushing for D.C. to have full control over its own affairs, that it should have senators and it should have a member of the House of Representatives. And, you know, very few Democrats are doing that. And, you know, what you are left with is, you know, a situation in which you've got a president who is

essentially trying to find every emergency power he can and to wield that. And, you know, the city has been sort of left defenses. Guess who just bundled their home in auto with D. Desjardin insurance. Well, look at you, all grown up in saving money. Yes, I am. Mom told you to do it, didn't she? Yes, she did. Get insurance that's really big on care. Switch and you could save up to 35% on home insurance when you bundle home and auto. Dejardin Insurance, here for your home, auto, life, and business needs. Certain conditions apply. On the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, comes an unprecedented exhibit. about one of history's darkest moments.

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So, I mean, Trump arguably has had it out for DC for, a while. In 2023, he said D.C. was full of filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls and the graffiti. This is not the place that I left. It's a very sad thing to see it. Earlier this year, he signed an executive order to beautify, he said, the Capitol, in which he called it horribly run and said it was a nightmare of murder and crime. That order was actually cited this week by the National Park Service when they said that they plan to reinstall a Confederate statue that was toppled in 2020. But what do you think is, you know, behind Trump's disdain for the city? I mean, the sort of Republican disdain for

Washington, D.C. is age old. I think that Washington, D.C. has been hated by Republicans for two reasons going back, we'll say roughly a century, which is one that it is the home of the federal government, so especially after the sort of conservative movement. took over the Republican Party in the, you know, mid-1960s, DC became synonymous with the sprawling federal bureaucracy that the Republican Party was increasingly defined against. But it also is, you know, a city that has had historically one of the largest black populations of any sort of large metro area in the country,

and that especially as the party also sort of became more oriented against civil rights that that D.C. was hated because it is a very diversity as well. And for Trump, you know, who's a, you know, a sort of bog standard authoritarian in a lot of ways, you know, the kind of lawlessness or his, you know, effort to paint it as the sort of lawless hellscape is, is partly, I think, just opportunistic that, you know, he's always looking for problems that are in need of a heavy-handed militarist, often militaristic solution. And so D.C. for him is one of those. I think the fact that D.C. is, the mayor of D.C. is a black woman. Is one reason why it is attracting his ire more recently. I think, you know, I'm not the first person to point out that, you know,

Trump tends to reserve very specific, usually insults for people of color and women, calling them, you know, low IQ, stupid, you know, incompetent, all these kinds of things. And, you know, and I think it also, you know, Trump just likes to see the military out because it reminds him that he's a powerful person. I think it's not an accident that, you know, that he wants the military back out on the street to D.C. two months after he had his, you know, big birthday military parade because it reminds him that he has the power to do this kind of stuff. You know, on the note of just this, you know, D.C. being a bit of a fixation of the broader Republican Party, broader Republican movement, I just wanted to play you this little exchange from that interview, you know, infamous interview that Tucker Carlson did with Ted Cruz, I believe, in late June. And just get your reaction to this little bit, which is very topical.

Can I ask you, you've been in the district a long time in D.C., so have I? And the city's way more dangerous and Congress runs this city. No, no Iranians ever going to kill me, but I could get carjacked here. And I just don't understand how the Congress could run the city and focus on the dangers of Iran when the city is like garbage. It's garbage. But Congress doesn't run the city. We could. Congress does run the city. It's in the Constitution. It's in the Constitution. But they've given home rule so it's a Democrat mayor. You can take it back. You control the Congress. I'd vote for it. I mean, just give me your reaction to that. I mean, obviously they're kind of talking, using different mechanisms,

but kind of talking about the same idea, right, about like taking back control of D.C. Yeah, I mean, this is a familiar, it's a favorite talking about way of Carlson's, this idea that diverse places are filthy. He's been talking about it this way for years. He called Jackson Heights and Queens, one of the most vibrant immigrant communities

in the entire country, you know, kind of disgusting many years ago. And so I think that, you know, part of what they're trying to get at here is that, you know, these are talking points that Trump also favors. It's this idea that Democrat-run cities where there are lots of immigrants and where there are lots of minorities are filthy, disgusting places. But I think that what Carlson is doing now, just the sort of more innovative, not to give him too much credit, part of his rhetoric is that he's positioning this idea that that more needs to be done domestically

in opposition to the kind of neoconservativeism that has that that for a long time was dogma within the Republican Party. So the argument that is being made by Carlson, which is also being advanced by people like Stephen Miller within the administration, is that the United States spends too much time, money, and attention overseas. And it should be direct. that domestically. Now, this is, I think, particularly interesting because it's kind of a historically left-wing argument. I mean, it almost is reminiscent of Muhammad Ali, who, you know, said, like, you know, no, you know, Viet Cong ever called me the N-word, right, about not fighting in Vietnam, that this idea that, you know, we're spending all this time being opposed to things

overseas and we're not spending enough time and attention at home. But I think the thing that is extremely troubling about it is is the militaristic connotation, right? Like Carlson, like Trump is advocating for a stronger military and police presence in American cities. And the goal is to clean them up. And, you know, he doesn't just mean trash, right? He's talking about people. They want to have this kind of militaristic presence on the streets of the United States. And that's what you're seen in Los Angeles. That's what you're seeing in D.C. now. And I think that, you know, I, I am fully expecting that there to at least be an attempt to do this kind of thing, you know, in New York, in the next six months, you know, presumably afters or on Labdani as elected mayor. You know, just to your point about, you know, where this could expand to other cities, particularly,

to, you know, Democratic cities. The Washington Post reported on Tuesday that the Pentagon is looking at a plan to create a domestic civil disturbance, quick reaction force, they're calling it, which would essentially keep 600 troops on standby from the National Guard at all times to be deployed anywhere in the country within potentially one hour. How could this, you know, in your opinion, normalize the use of the military on American soil for domestic deployment? I think, I mean, I think you could argue that the use of the military has already been normalized by

Trump over the last six months. But, you know, I think that that does get to the, to what I think is one of the big points here, right? And that cuts to Newsom v. Trump. It cuts to what's happening in D.C. It certainly cuts to what happens whenever Trump speaks about wanting to deploy the military other places, which is that, you know, what he really wants is a, is to have the military or a sort of a domestic law enforcement agency that is directly under his control. Now, we've already seen a version of this, right, with him, you know, really making a point of having a loyalist at the Federal Bureau of Investigations, where he installed cash patel. He does not want to be checked in any way when it comes to deploying law enforcement

in the military. And I think that, you know, it seems very clear to me that this is, based on two reasons, right? One is the fact that he was, he spent most of his first term under investigation by domestic law enforcement over his campaigns alleged ties to a Russian intelligence campaign that was seeking to manipulate voters in the 2016 election. And, and also, again, to the failed insurrection on January 6th, where, again, that was ultimately brought down by National Guard troops who were deployed not by Donald Trump, but by vice president, Mike Pence. And, you know, Trump has very much seen the sort of numerous checks that are on the executive in the United States, and he does not like them. And I think that they

have largely wanted, instead of trying to reform existing institutions like the National Guard, which, again, is not really doing anything here, you're seeing a real effort to try to alter and manipulate sort of newer law enforcement agencies, most notably ICE. So, you know, the sort of big beautiful bill that passed last month, you know, had billions of dollars in it for a huge expansion of ICE, which, you know, is more responsive, I think, to the president's whims. And then with this sort of response force now, I think you're also seeing sort of goal of having another version of it. And again, you know, part of this is that, you know, National Guard troops did not sign up to engage in a kind of, you know, symbolic show of force against their fellow

American citizens, right? And Trump wants a sort of group of hardline loyalists. He sees ICE as being that, but that's clearly not enough. And I think, you know, they're looking at the National Guard that was deployed in L.A., the one that's deployed in D.C. and saying that that's not enough either. And I think that really the sort of ultimate goal here is to create, you know, a kind of militarized branch of law enforcement that is, you know, wholly loyal to the president. Okay, Alex, as always, thank you so much. Thank you. All right, that is all for today.

I'm All right, that is all for listening to Frontburner, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca.ca slash podcasts.