It Could Happen Here - DC Police Takeover Update feat. Bridget Todd

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Bridget Todd talks with Garrison about what the expiration of Trump's emergency order means for Washington DC, how it was a cover for increased immigration enforcement, and why the lack of statehood makes DC more vulnerable than other cities.  Follow Bridget: https://bsky.app/profile/bridgettodd.bsky.social https://www.instagram.com/bridgetmarieindc/ There Are No Girls on the Internet: https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1119-there-are-no-girls-on-the-65877505/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name.

Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer, a new podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life.

This is Wisecrack, available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. Had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you never. Five, six white people pushed me in the car. I'm going, what about that? Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin.

All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it. She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Stang on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts.

I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all.

We basically sold our souls, and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her? Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Cool Zone Media. Yeah, the last time that you and I spoke was about 12 hours after Trump announced the takeover of D.C.'s police force.

It had really just happened, so I didn't really have a ton of clarity about how things were going to be taking shape and what resistance or pushback would look like. Now, today that we're speaking, Friday, September 12th, it's been a little over about 30 days since all of this went down. And I feel like we're due for an update from my hometown, the District of Columbia. What do you say? Absolutely. We're at the deadline, so now Trump can no longer do anything. The city's back. God, I wish. You're free once again. Oh, my God, from your lips to God's ears. So I did want to set the stage a little bit up top. You know, I'm a journalist, but I am also an advocate for D.C. statehood. First and foremost, I feel like I need to make sure something is super clear, which is that how entwined all of this is to D.C.

lack of statehood. After the last time that you and I spoke, Gere, a listener said, oh, why is she making this whole thing about state? How would D.C. being a state, change anything? How would two more Democratic senators change anything? Why are you making it about that? And I thought, oops, I did not do a good enough job of making clear why the takeover in D.C. could happen at all, and the ways that D.C.'s lack of statehood is at the heart of that issue. This is just sort of the soup that I swim in all day every day, so I forget that's not true for everything. For some of you, this might be a refresher, and you might know this already, but the reason why Trump started all of this in D.C. is because D.C. is not a state. You know, as president, Trump has a lot more

authority over D.C. than he has over any other place in the country. So while Trump talking about sending the National Guard into other cities is awful. He wants to do it to Chicago so bad. So bad. But he doesn't have the ability to. And he's really upset about that so that he's probably going to cancel a degree of the plans for National Guard deployment to Chicago instead going to cooperate with Louisiana because the governor is okay with working with Trump on that in Louisiana. Yes, exactly, exactly. Did you see, this is like a non-securter, but the tweet that he put out, like the AI generated tweet that's they're going to find out why we call it the Department of War. Then it was like, oh, we were just, just kidding that tweet. No, that was just a joke. Which isn't to like downplay, like, the amount of

federal resources currently in Chicago, ICE and DHS have been very busy in Chicago. And I believe Friday morning, the day that we recorded this, ICE killed somebody in Chicago during an enforcement action. So this isn't to say, you know, Chicago's freed from Trump's federal forces. ICE is still operating in Chicago as they have been. But at least the National Guard deployment, like mass military style occupation is unlikely in the near future. Yes, that is great context. And I think it also illustrates why what's happening in D.C. is so unique and could not happen anywhere else in the country. So while Trump is talking about wanting to send

the National Guard to other cities, he does not have the broad authority to take over local police forces in those cities the way that he did in D.C. And even if he did, let's say, exercise what authority he could have over local police. other city, say, like, in an emergency situation, it still wouldn't be the attempt to take over the police force like we saw in D.C. Like, when this first happened, Pam Bondi was literally trying to replace D.C.'s chief of police briefly successfully until D.C.'s attorney general, Brian Schwab sued, right? And so Trump does not have the authority to oust local leaders in other cities and states, even if Trump sent the National Guard to Memphis. Memphis still has a mayor.

Tennessee has a governor. They're senators. It's congressional representation. because D.C. is not a state, Trump, working with Congress, could take over our city, oust our mayor, and our city council. He has been talking about doing that as recently as this morning. I want to play a quick clip. He does lie in this clip because technically he doesn't have the authority. It has to go through Congress. But, you know, I don't see our Congress really standing up to whatever Trump wants anytime soon. And so if Congress were to revoke D.C.'s home rule, then Trump would be able to appoint whoever. he wanted to run D.C. So I want to play a clip of him talking about this. Weirdly, in a presser about the Charlie Kirk murder, here's what he had to say. Well, the mayor's asked us to say. You know, we have a Democrat mayor. He was asked us today. And D.C. is a little bit different because I could federalize it if I want. You know, D.C. is a little bit different. So we have a lot of, a lot. We have actually more power in D.C. because it's, you know, I can change the mayor if I want.

I can do whatever I want. I haven't had to. We've had a great relationship with the mayor. We've had a great relationship. Everybody's happy. And the mayor was not in favor of it. At first, we, you know, forced. And then she saw the results. And everyone's going up and thank you in her. We have no crime anymore. Oh, okay. I got to stop it because I can't even, I can't even listen to him blow v.8 on that. But again, he's kind of lying here. But there is a reality where Trump single handedly is in control of D.C. So it would have to take Congress overturning D.C.'s home rule. But I don't think that would be terribly difficult for him to achieve. And if that does happen, he is right that he could appoint whoever he wanted to be in control of DC. And so the GOP has already introduced

legislation that would revoke DC's home rule entirely, something that Trump says that he wants to do. To be super clear, this would mean that all of the little things that you rely on and probably take for granted about your day-to-day local life, your social services, your trash pickup, how your streets are run, your public transport, Trump would be in charge of literally all of that for me. It's important to me that people understand how bad of a situation that would be. Yeah, that would be unprecedented. So just to put a pin in that, even though Trump is talking about sending the National Guard to other cities, D.C.'s lack of statehood really makes what's happening here unlike any other place in the country. D.C. is uniquely vulnerable. In addition to all

of the like racial equity and democracy implications for statehood. The reality is everyday lives of more than a half a million people who live here like me are made more vulnerable by D.C.'s lack of statehood. So when I am like on my statehood soapbox, that is why, because the lack of statehood in D.C. just makes us very vulnerable to having somebody like Trump really exercise an unprecedented amount of control that we will not see anywhere else in the United States. So just wanted to make that clear. Okay, so now I have some updates about the situation. As you said, Garrison, the crime emergency in D.C., which sort of kicked all of this off,

has come to an end. Free! That's over. Mission accomplished. We did it. Mission accomplished. So it lasted 30 days, and it's come to an end. However, there is no guarantee that Trump couldn't just declare another one.

the optics of that would be a little weird because he's been talking, as we just heard in that clip, he's been talking about how crime is down to zero in D.C. except for domestic violence, which everybody knows isn't really a crime, right? Like, he made it very clear that he feels like crime has gone to zero. So it would be pretty weird to then institute another crime emergency in D.C. He kind of got what he wanted to with the mayor agreeing to cooperate with him somewhat. Exactly. So to be super clear, even with the crime emergency in D.C. ending, that in no way means an end to things like the National Guard in our streets or checkpoints, which have just been horrifying and the surge that we're seeing in federal law enforcement because

those are two distinct things. And in the last few weeks of this, what's really become just abundantly clear is that this whole thing was about immigration. Even after all the talk of crime in D.C., it became very clear that this is less about crime and more about enforcing Trump's immigration agenda. As you sort of alluded to early on, before she really changed her tune, about two weeks into the takeover, our mayor, Muriel Bowser, held a press conference where she said, well, if Trump's goal was to deport migrants and bring in ICE, you know, he didn't have to take over MPD to do that. He should have just outright said that's what he wanted to do instead of making it this whole thing about crime. Don't ask her to repeat that sentiment now because I don't

think that she would. She's really, really changed her tune, which we'll talk about in a moment. And so one of the things that makes it complicated is that when you're talking about immigration detention versus other kinds of arrests, it just becomes a lot harder to have transparency into what's going on. But the Associated Press reported that data from the federal operation, analyzed by the AP, shows that more than 40 percent of the arrests made over the month-long operation were related to immigration. They spoke to Austin Rose, a managing attorney for the Amicus Center for Immigate Rights, who said, the federal takeover has been on. cover to do federal immigration enforcement, it became pretty clear early on that this was a major campaign of immigration enforcement. And that's just, it's really hard to deny that this was just another increasing plank of the president's agenda on immigration. Yeah, and I think you can certainly look at the anti-crime narratives getting a lot of traction on the right with that pretty

gruesome murder in North Carolina last week as well. And like, absolutely, the crime angle is part of the rhetorical strategy Trump is using. And, yeah, a right-wing, populist president doing a crime crackdown, oh, this is unheard of, this is unprecedented. No, of course, they're going to use that angle. But yeah, the under-discussed element of this is how much this has just been a cover to do a rapid increase in the number of immigration actions around D.C. Well, like you said, that was like 40%. So still another 60% of arrests is just affecting the other D.C. residents. And a lot of that is tying to this national crime wave narrative that these people are also pushing. I think these things work together.

They're not necessarily like oppositional analyses of what's going on. But the immigration angle has been very like under discussed in the D.C. occupation. I agree. It's hard to discuss because I think we have to really have some honest conversations. It is true that D.C. experienced a surge in violent crime in 2023. That surge thankfully went down. But I think that crime is just one of those issues where people who otherwise are in vested in telling nuanced, thoughtful stories about complex issues. I see a lot of that nuance and thoughtfulness go right out the window when we're talking about crime. And I think that we really let the right dominate the conversation about crime in our cities. And in some ways, hijack that

conversation. And I do think that dynamic is part and parcel to how we got here now. I have a be in my bonnet about some of the sloppy journalism, like local journalism, people who really should know better about crime, you know, we had a wave of businesses shut and they would say, oh, we're shutting because of crime. And it's like, yeah, look, yeah. You actually look and you're thinking, oh, well, this is a cashless business. What kind of crime were you experiencing? Yeah, there's no way. Using crime as his excuse in a post-COVID economic decline has been extremely convenient for a lot of corporations. And yeah, I guess like the degree to which we've ceded territory on that same same way, you know, we ceded territory on like the border

own immigration, but specifically sitting territory on discussion of crime allowed operating space for Trump to deploy this narrative, which then was used to hurt a lot of immigrants. Exactly. And in D.C., we saw much

tighter coordination with immigration officials with our local police force, especially at checkpoints where police would work with ICE, even if someone was not otherwise detained or in custody. I did an interview with Washington Post, Tayu Armas, who covers immigrant communities here in D.C. And he told me that this whole thing was essentially an attack on the

policies that make a city like D.C. what is commonly thought of as a sanctuary city. I don't love the phrase sanctuary city, but you know what I mean, you know, laws that do not require police departments to coordinate with immigration officials. Really, that it was an attack on those. Yeah, totally. Yeah. I mean, and I think that it's important that we call that out for what it is. And this is difficult for me personally, but not get lost in debating. what Trump is laying out about crime. Because when you understand that it's not really about crime, then you don't have to do that debating, right?

And it's like, well, it's not really about crime, so let's not waste time debating what we both can plainly see this is not really about. Yeah, yeah. Because D.C. is just faking all its crime stats anyway, right, Bridget? Oh, gosh. Don't even get me started, Gare. This is a tape recorded statement. person being interviewed

is Krista Gail Pike, which is in regards to the death of Colleen Slimmer. She started going off on me and I hit her. I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her. On a cold January day

in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slimmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death. throw. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove

that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin, so, like, it's not, like...

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. On stage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear.

The 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack,

where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack. on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it.

But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heart. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes. They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast. or anywhere you get your podcasts. Think back to the early 2000s.

You're flipping through TV channels, and then you hear this. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you! Learn something from this! But looking back 20 years later, that iconic show so many of us loved is horrified. Robin, first of all, is too old to be starting.

She's huge. I talked to cast, crew, and producers who were there for some of the show's most shocking moments. If you were so rooting for her, what did you help her? With never before heard interviews, the curse of America's Next Top Model

examines why this show was so popular and where it all went wrong. We basically sold our souls and they got rich. Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

And so something that Tayu told me in our interview that I found very troubling is that, again, when someone is detained because of a suspected immigration-related issue, we just have a lot less information and transparency than if they were being arrested for another kind of crime. Yeah. He described it as a black box that is difficult to penetrate, which is obviously heightened when you have masked agents

pulling people out of cars at checkpoints and doing things like literally hitting delivery drivers with vehicles, right? Like, it becomes very difficult to really even understand what's going on, and that's by design. It's hard to find them in the system because these people often aren't even charged with a crime. Remaining in the country past the expiration of a visa isn't a crime. Exactly. So, though these people are branded as quote-unquote criminal migrants, that often is factually incorrect. If factually incorrect even matters anymore, which it increasingly does not, it seems. Yeah.

And, I mean, as you said, we know that immigrant communities are not committing more crime than the rest of the population. And so... Estimates would show less, actually. Exactly. Because they don't want to get deported. And, you know, again, I feel myself getting pulled back into Trump's... He gets me go, like, circling the drain with this, where it's like, well, if you really

cared about crime, you would want immigrant communities to feel comfortable talking to police with the understanding that they weren't going to be deported, if they reported a crime, or if they witnessed a crime, or if they saw a crime. But again, it's not really about... crime. So I don't have to, I don't have to get myself pulled into that. No, because it's entirely racialized. That's like the big common denominator here, even with the anti-crime narrative and the immigration stuff, is that it's all racialized violence. Yes. And I mean, I'm glad that you brought that up. Just as a personal note, I live in Columbia Heights, which is a heavily black and brown

neighborhood, a very thriving Latino population. And it really just has been awful, right? I live on a very busy street that runs right through the city and, like, checkpoints on either side of my street. And I was listening to, I think it was a Kara Swisher podcast, and she also lives in D.C. And she was saying, oh, well, I haven't really noticed any big changes. And I'm thinking, Kara. Yeah, yeah, I bet. I bet you aren't noticing many changes. Yeah, I bet you haven't noticed any changes.

And, yeah, I mean, I lived in D.C. most of my whole life, I've never seen checkpoints where people are physically dragged out of cars. in this way. So I mean, if you don't live in a neighborhood like this, you might be able to get away with saying, oh, I haven't seen any big changes or nothing's really changed. Or maybe I did see the National Guard when I leave my house. But in neighborhoods like mine, the change is very real. I'll put it that way. So you brought up the mayor, which I did want to briefly touch on. I have been called out on this very podcast for being too sympathetic to our mayor, which is actually funny to me because on my other podcast, all we do is call her out. But the point that I have tried to make, and I think this is the nature of that of that fatigue, is that I do think it is important that people understand that our lack of statehood in D.C. does put our mayor in a position where her authority is just realistically a lot more limited than other elected officials. But even in that situation with realistically limited authority, her play here has been cozying up to Trump. And that is 100% a choice. That is not something. that other elected officials in D.C. have done. That is 100% a choice. And it's a choice in an attempt in some ways to diffuse the situation, to not have Trump escalate, to not go into a even more like legally uncharted territory, right? To not accelerate the conflict. And I think a lot of people who are critiquing this move actually would be very interested in this point, in accelerating this

conflict, seeing what Trump will actually do stress test even more of our democracy. And a lot of people are interested in watching the results of that happen. And I can see how someone like Bowser doesn't want to do that. But that opens her up for a lot of critique.

And I'm interested in what you said about like other city officials. That's not something I've heard as much about. Is her kind of cooperating with Trump compared to the stance of other city officials? Yeah. I mean, look at DC's Attorney General Brian Schwab, who has been out here suing the Trump administration

somewhat successfully and has been a much more obvious fighter for DC, right? So like, he is certainly not playing nice. He's like, oh, we're going to fight this in the courts. If you want to try to take over our city, we will see you in court. I'm so curious what the conversations are like between Bowser and Schwab, but it just reveals to me that capitulating and cozying up, I'm not going to say it's not a strategy, but it's certainly a choice. And to your point earlier, There are definitely people who say, hey, she's playing nice with Trump. D.C. still has home rule. D.C. still has a mayor.

And the crime emergency has ended. Those are all good things. And being a resident of D.C., I will happily say, I don't want to see how far Trump will go on this. I want this to end. I'm not someone who was like, yeah, like, let the chips fall where they may. I want my trash picked up. I want my, you know, my neighbor's kids to be able to go to school, all of that. I'm not, I'm not.

That's understandable, yeah. Yeah. It's the complex thing. I do think that, you know, early on in this, Bowser was talking about how crime in D.C. was down. And then Trump said on social media, oh, Bowser better get her story straight on the crime numbers or things are going to get worse. And days later, she was singing a very different tune. She did a press conference where she thanked the federal government. She did stop short of thanking Trump specifically.

but thanking the federal government for helping D.C. with the crime issue and I guess as somebody who's been following Bowser for as long as I have, it wasn't terribly surprising in an episode I did of it could happen here I think back in January. We talked about how her stance with

Trump this time around was like concession after concession after concession. So it wasn't surprising. This falls in line with that, I guess. Correct. And I do think that people need to understand that in a lot of ways Because Bowser, and I don't mean this in the way that it's going to sound, but like, I do think that there is alignment between Bowser and Trump on a lot of issues, crime potentially being one of them, right? When we were talking about how Trump wanted Bowser to dismantle encampments in D.C., it wasn't like Bowser as some friend to the homeless.

No, no, no, no. Yeah, like the specific encampment in question, she already had plans to demolish just later on on a slower timeline. There is a class alignment among people in the political, quote unquote, elite, right? You can look at Gavin Newsom's extreme anti-homeless policies and compare that to Trump's extreme anti-homeless policies. And yeah, they have class alignment on that issue, even if Gavin might be against Trump on some other issues, though. He has his own fair share of concessions to Trump. Oh, you said it, friend. Also, I like that I'm on a first-name basis with Gavin.

I know, Gab. Podcaster Solidarity. And as we've seen the past week, podcaster solidarity, most important thing. Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Also, fellow I heart podcaster, I believe. For Gavin, yeah. I hope he joins the union. Yeah, same. And I guess I should say to your point about the complexities about, you know, the way that Bowser, our mayor is playing this. It's true that it's good that the crime emergency has ended, that D.C. still has home rule. We still have a mayor. We sold the city council as of today. And even if you would say, like, well, that's, you know, the mayor cozing up with Trump. Like, you have that to thank. That's why that's

happening. Our mayor is really making no friends with other black mayors in cities like Chicago and Baltimore, I have to assume, when she does press conferences where she talks about how having federal troops in D.C. has been good for this city, how crime has gone down. When you have these other cities that are currently trying to fend off federal takeovers from Trump. So even if her cozying up with Trump has led to D.C. specifically being able to enjoy home rule for another day at what cost if it enables Trump's actions in other cities, you know? Me putting on my skull mask as I bring out my chessboard depicting the accelerationist collapse of D.C. and how that affects a larger political situation in the United States.

Yes. How much, how much of D.C. am I willing to sacrifice to see how far Trump will go? Yeah. It's tough. It's complicated because obviously as a D.C. resident, I want to have a safe and peaceful existence for myself here in D.C., but it's not happening in a vacuum. And so I also have to think about, you know, the national implications for other cities. And, you know, I don't envy our mayor, I guess. I don't envy many mayors. Oh, I am firmly believe if you want to become the mayor of a city like D.C., Baltimore, Chicago, something has to be wrong with you. And Bridget Todd has come out against Zoron Mamdani, officially on the It Could Happen Here podcast.

No, no, no, no. I'm just saying, I mean, yeah, I'll say it. Who wants a job like that? No, it sounds like a nightmare, yeah. I had a friend who was like vying to be the head of comms for the Baltimore Police Department. And I was like, wow, you are a massacre. That's even a weirder.

That's even a weirder. That's like the, I can't imagine to never know peace and not get into heaven. No. He's probably listening and thinking, oh, why should. talking shit about me. And so it is complicated and I do think it's important as important as much as I want D.C. to be a safe place where I can walk outside and not see people getting dragged out of cars and federal checkpoints and all of that. We do need to think about the larger picture here. And people that I've talked to with regards to the mayor, they tell me that, oh, it seems

like she is just not interested in the like the polling of these decisions. Because the conversations that I am having, people are not happy with her in the spaces I am in the conversation is like, how do we recall this mayor? Like, even though we might have these sort of things that you consider victories, D.C., enjoying home rule, still having a mayor, a city council, all of that,

people are really, really, really not happy with our mayor. Yeah. This is a tape recorder statement. The person being interviewed is Krista Gail Pike. This is in regards to the death of a Colleen Slimmer. She just started going off on Eve, and I hit her.

I just hit her and hit her and hit her and hit her. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slimmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee. Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. The state has asked for an execution date for Krista. We let people languish in prison for decades, raising questions about who we consider fundamentally unrestorable. How does someone prove that they deserve to live?

We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Ed. Everyone say, hello, Ed. I'm from a very rural background myself. My dad is a farmer, and my mom is a cousin, so, like, it's not, like...

What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? I know it sounds like the start of a bad joke, but that really was my reality nine years ago. I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. Onstage stood a comedian with a story that no one expected to hear. Well, 22nd of July 2015, a 23-year-old man had killed his family. And then he came to my house. So what do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? A new podcast called Wisecrack, where stand-up comedy and murder takes center stage.

Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents race to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. We had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. But what they find is not what they expected. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. They go, is this your daughter? I said yes.

They go, oh, you may not see her for like 25 years. Caught between a federal investigation and the violent gang who recruited them, the women must decide who they're willing to protect and who they dare to betray. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. Think back to the early 2000s. You're flipping through TV channels,

and then you hear this. I was rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. How dare you! Learn something from this! But looking back 20 years later, that iconic show so many of us loved, is horrified.

Robin, first of all, is too old to be starting modeling. I talked to cast, crew, and producers who were there for some of the show's most shocking moments. If you were so rooting for her, what did you help her? With never before heard interviews, the curse of America's Next Top Model examines why this show was so popular and where it all went wrong. We basically sold our souls and they got rich. Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

So looking ahead at what's coming up next, even though the crime emergency is ending, this whole thing is very far from over. The fight for the self-determination of D.C. It's far from over in ways that have, in a lot of ways, nothing to do with Trump. There are 13 bills in the House aimed at directly taking action at D.C.

many of them are direct assaults on D.C.'s home rules. There are provisions that would make it easier for Congress to overturn D.C. Home Rule. There are provisions that lower the age of when you can be tried as an adult for crimes from 16 to 14. There is a provision that would give Congress longer time to review D.C.'s laws. Right now, it's 30 days. They would change it to 60 days. All of D.C.'s laws have to go through Congress. It is a nightmare. Like, it is a whole thing. The biggest of these bills in the House right now is, of course, wanting to overturn D.C.'s ability for district residents to elect our own

attorney general instead of having an attorney general appointed by Trump. If that bill were to become law, it would mean that our current attorney general, the person who I would argue has sort of emerged as the, if there was a single person that you could look at and be like, oh, this person is trying to fight for D.C.'s home rule and authority, Brian Schwab, he would be fired immediately and Trump would be able to replace him with whoever he chose, not somebody that district residents elected or voted for or campaign for, just whoever Trump wanted. And that term would run concurrent with the president of the United States.

So obviously, you know, some of these pieces are not overturning home rule entirely, but they are clearly attacks on D.C.'s ability to govern itself and the self-determination of folks here in the district. Are you going to discuss what's going to happen with the safe and beautiful task force? Oh, no, but I can. It's been past the expiration of the order, Bowser's establishment of the task force to continue federal cooperation.

Yes. I guess it's like one of the most immediate, like, continuing aspects of this story. And it's like unclear how much this heightened federal presence will last past the expiration of the order. So in a press conference, I have to say Bowser was pretty tight-lipped when asked directly about all of that.

And so a lot of it sounds like wait and see, like she really did not give clear answers. And so I walked away from that presser being just as confused as you probably are, just as confused as listeners are. I do think in part that speaks to the unprecedented nature of the way that Trump is dealing with D.C. right now of like they might genuinely not know. But the fact of the way that she has been so tight-lipped, I hate giving this answer, but I think it's a wait-and-see kind of situation. Yeah, fair. Hi, this is future Bridget coming in on Monday night to say that we have actually got more clarity on the question of whether or not police in D.C. would continue

working with federal immigration officials after D.C.'s crime emergency ended. D.C.'s mayor, Muriel Bowser, was still being pretty tight-lipped about this when Gare and I were speaking about it on Friday. But on Monday, September 15th, it was reported that Bowser had announced that D.C.'s police department, MPD, would no longer be assisting immigration officials with immigration enforcement the way they had been during the crime emergency. Bowser said, immigration enforcement is not what MPD does, and with the end of the emergency, it won't be what MPD does. Trump did not like this, and on Monday, Trump renewed threats to federalize DC's police again if the department does not cooperate with ICE, saying, quote, under pressure from the radical left Democrats, Mayor Muriel Bowser, who has presided over this violent criminal takeover of our capital for years, has informed the federal government that the Metropolitan Police Department will no longer cooperate with ICE in removing and relocating dangerous illegal aliens. If I allowed this to happen, all caps crime would come roaring back. To the people and businesses of Washington,

D.C., all caps, don't worry, I am with you and won't allow this to happen. I'll call a national emergency and federalize, if necessary, three exclamation points. And so I guess one of the big questions that I've been wrestling with is what does all of this mean for the future of D.C. there was a time where it felt like lawmakers had D.C.'s back, but it's really become clear that the days of D.C. being able to count on the Senate and Congress are over. I did an interview with a longtime journalist here in D.C. Mark Seagraves, and he reminded me that D.C. has really been the most reliable jurisdiction in the country. There is for Democrats. There is no other place that has given more electoral votes for president to Democrats. every single election. It's extremely consistent.

Extremely. I mean, have you seen that map where it's the election for Reagan? And it's a whole big splotch of red and only, I think, Minnesota and D.C. are the only splotch of blue. Like, nobody backs Democrats like D.C. backs Democrats every single time. California can't say that. Massachusetts can't say that. And in return, the party has essentially abandoned us.

They circulated messaging nationally telling Democrats to tread carefully about how to talk about what is clearly an attempt at a fascist takeover of our city. D.C. has given Democrats this unwavering support since we had the ability to vote in presidential elections, which hasn't been that long, only since the 60s, but still, right? And this is how they do us. And we have known for years that Republicans like Mike Lee and others have had their eye on D.C. They want to overturn D.C. rule. overturned DC laws, even things that have nothing to do with crime and public safety, things like abortion. It is so clearly about control. They have been eyeing control of DC for many, many, many, many, many years. And now we have this big, wide open, breezy window allowing them to do that. Is DC spiritually Midwestern? Because like, it's, sorry, that's an insane question. Tell me more about what you mean by this. Because, like, in some ways, you know, it is like a coast

elite place. And it's like the, you know, the heart of political power. But D.C. to me, always has kind of had Midwest vibes. I don't, I don't know how to express it any other way. They mean, it's because so many people from the Midwest moved to D.C. to do politics work. But I'm sure people from all over moved to D.C. to do politics work. But, like, D.C. and, like, Minneapolis feel like very similar cities to me in some ways. I have said this before. See? That's what I'm saying. Yeah. I have said this before. Like, I think there is something to this where, and in that interview I did with Mark Seagraves, he kind of gets at it a little bit. But I do think that D.C. is the kind of place where you can just sort of take for granted that

I will always live in this sort of progressive city. I will always sort of live in this city. Like, I think it's easy to take things like home rule in D.C. for granted. And I think D.C., the nature of D.C. is a little bit weird that, as you kind of alluded to, it's a very transient city. And so there are people living in D.C. who have only known. one mayor, Bouser, because she's been mayor for like 10 years, right? They don't know Mayor Gray. They don't know Mayor Fenty. They don't know how kind of tenuous a lot of what holds D.C. together actually is. And it can be really easy when you're living in a city that historically has enjoyed low unemployment, has been pretty moneyed, is pretty progressive. The kinds of

fights that we were having in D.C. before all this started, they seem so quaint now. Bike lanes, tipped minimum wage, like all of these, you know, it is sort of like Minneapolis in a kind of way. You're not wrong. Well, I'm glad my vibes meter is still accurately attuned. Yes. And I did want to spend a little bit of time talking about the protests and pushback that we've seen because D.C. is not taken this quietly. There was a massive protest in March that I will say I'm a little sad that it didn't get more national coverage. Weirdly, it got a lot of international coverage, but not a ton of national coverage.

but not a ton of national coverage, which is sort of part and parcel for D.C. So many national outlets only think about D.C. when it comes to federal implications and when it comes to what's happening locally in our streets and at Malcolm X. Park and all of that, they're like D.C. who, we don't know her. So, like, that protest was quite moving. We also have local groups like Harriet's Wildest Dreams and Free D.C. who are great resources. Free D.C., a lot of their work has been at the community level. leading things like cop watching trainings or like training residents to film enforcement stops, which when you consider what Teu Armas told me from the Washington Post about how these immigration detentions and arrests are often just a black box. Like we've seen video where a resident is being detained by immigration officials and

they are speaking to the person recording like, please record this, please record this. And so I do think like things like that are super important when you're dealing with, you know, this black box dynamic of immigration detentions and arrests. We also have things like educating residents on their legal rights. And this is like a weird saying in D.C. D.C. has a ton of parks, actually more parks than any other part of the country where consistently voted the number one city in the country for parks. And so because D.C. is just a wonky place.

Sometimes you don't know if you're on federal versus city property. So you can find yourself in a park that's just a tiny little triangle of grass. Oh, no, you're actually on federal property. So if you get arrested there, you're actually in a federal jurisdiction, even though you're miles from the White House and you thought like, oh, I'm just hanging on in a public park. So we have seen local activist groups and organizing groups really try to educate folks on their rights and some of those distinctions of like, hey, if you commit a crime here, you're technically on federal property and you should understand that. And I wanted to mention this because I do think it's easier to think of resistance as this big, loud, visible thing happening in the streets. And as moving and powerful as that big protest was, so far, I think a lot of the powerful resistance has been community oriented, right? It's not as exciting as, you know, being out in the streets necessarily, but it is no less important.

Yeah, the non-flashy stuff often goes under-recognized. Yeah. And I will also say that folks might know D.C. has its own style of music called GoGo, which is sort of a city, local, artistic expression of music here. And I've even seen groups like Harriet's Wildest Dreams trying to organize joyful go-go jams in public spaces just to remind folks that joy is also part of resistance, just so that the only thing that we're talking about is not defending our cities and being on the defense, but also reconnecting to the things that make our city's joyful and exciting and lovely places to be. And I think it has been important to me when you're sick to death of reporting about all of this, also getting to remember that joy is part of it. That's like why we're doing this so that we can experience joy in our cities. Yes, I agree. We will allow a little bit of joy, I suppose, in this semi-unjoyful time. Yeah, a tiny bit. I will, speaking of you, Joy, I wanted to end on one last teeny tiny little tidbit about resistance,

which is that when we were talking last time, Gare, I told you, I think this was like the day that the takeover was announced, there was that guy who threw a sandwich at the federal agent. Yes. Well, they popped this dude on felony charges, but D.C.'s grand jury failed to indict, and now he's down to a misdemeanor. So he pled not guilty, I think, just a couple days ago, to just a distance. a misdemeanor. So, yeah, I mean, grand juries, they used to say, like, oh, you could get a grand jury didn't bite a ham sandwich. I guess not if it's thrown out of federal officer. You can't. Not in D.C. This is like the only good piece of grand jury news I have kind of ever heard in my life.

Whenever I hear news about a grand jury, it's always like terrible. Like, oh, no, that sounds awful. Yeah. This is the first, the first based grand jury I've ever seen. Yes, yes. I mean, if you're listening in D.C. and you're on a grand jury, you know what to do. I'll just tell us to put it that way. But yeah, that's all I have, really. I would just say, you know, if you happen to be listening in a place that is not the district, we really need your voice. You know, when stuff happens, there's not really anybody I can call. We have a congressional representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton. She has been a lifelong fighter for, D.C. and D.C.'s self-determination and civil rights. She is also, I think, the second oldest person in Congress, and I'll just say it's showing. I think, you know, we don't really have a lot of people who are fighting for us and being a voice for us. And so, yeah, stay checked in to D.C. even if Trump moves to, you know, deploy national guards in other places, other kinds of takeovers. What's happening in D.C. is unique. It cannot happen in any other place in the country.

And we're so often overlooked and ignored. And so if there are bills moving through Congress, call your Congress people and please advocate for the self-determination of D.C. residents because we have no one to advocate for on our behalf. So please be our voice. Thank you for talking about D.C. Once again, Bridget, where can people find you online and your other shows? You can check me out. On my podcast, there are no girls on the internet on IHeartRadio. A co-host a podcast called Citicast, D.C., about local happenings and politics and news in D.C. You can check that out.

I'm on Instagram at Bridgett, Marine, D.C. I'm on TikTok at Bridgett, Marine, D.C. And I'm on YouTube, but there are no girls on the internet. Yeah, that's right. Okay, cool. I'm glad we figured that out. I know. I guess YouTube is like a cesspool.

I'm doing my best out there. So true. It could happen here is a production of cool. Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonemedia.com, or check us out on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. On a cold January day in 1995, 18-year-old Krista Pike killed 19-year-old Colleen Slemmer in the woods of Knoxville, Tennessee.

Since her conviction, Krista has been sitting on death row. How does someone prove that they deserve to live? We are starting the recording now. Please state your first and last name. Krista Pike. Listen to Unrestorable Season 2, Proof of Life, on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I just normally do straight stand-up, but this is a bit different. What do you get when a true crime producer walks into a comedy club? Answer. podcast called Wisecrack, where a comedian finds himself at the center of a chilling true crime story. Does anyone know what show they've come to see? It's a story. It's about the scariest night of my life. This is Wisecrack. Available now. Listen to Wisecrack on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In early 1988, federal agents

raced to track down the gang they suspect of importing millions of dollars worth of heroin into New York from Asia. I had 30 agents ready to go with shotguns and rifles and you name it. Five, six white people. Pushed me in the car. Basically, your stay-at-home moms were picking up these large amounts of heroin. All you got to do is receive the package. Don't have to open it, just accept it.

She was very upset, crying. Once I saw the gun, I tried to take his hand, and I saw the flash of light. Listen to the Chinatown Sting on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or anywhere you get your podcasts. I'm Bridget Armstrong, host of the new podcast, The Curse of America's Next Top Model. I've been investigating the real story behind that iconic show. I ended up having anorexia issues, bulimia issues, by talking to the models, the producers, and the people who profited from it all. We basically sold our souls, and they got rich. If you were so rooting for her and saw her drowning, what did you help her?

Listen to the curse of America's Next Top Model. on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is an IHeart podcast.