It Could Happen Here - The Federalization of DC Police feat. Bridget Todd

Episode Date: August 18, 2025

DC resident Bridget Todd talks with Garrison about Trump’s police takeover in Washington DC, the manufacturing of crime panics, and how federal police are effecting the city.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan.

Every episode will explore. are one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question, why we believe, what we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion.

You may even know me as the People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Futter Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebeney,

the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insights, site on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcast

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. What would you do if one bad decision forced you to choose between a maximum security prison or the most brutal boot camp designed to be hell on earth? Unfortunately for Mark Lombardo, this was

the choice he faced. He said you are a number, a new York State number, and we own you. Listen to shock incarceration on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, It Could Happen Your Listeners. I wanted to flag that we have launched individual feeds for some of your favorite shows that currently run within the It Could Happen Here feed. We wanted to make these shows more accessible and easier to share. You can still listen to

these shows in the It Could Happen Here feed, but can also subscribe on an individual level. So check out, Executive Disorder White House Weekly, Myanmar printing the revolution, Marshall Islands after the bomb dropped, migrating to America, a dream worth dying for, Stop Cop City to Defend a Forest, and Margaret Kilroy's Cool Zone Media Book Club. Listen now on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This is It Could Happen here. I'm Garrison Davis. One place that it is happening right now is Washington, D.C., where Trump has undergone a quasi-military takeover of the city. And to discuss this, I'm joined by Bridget Todd, D.C. resident. Gare, so I was on the podcast a few months ago talking about Trump's history of threats to D.C. And that is really all come to a head. So I'm really happy to be. sitting down with you to talk about it. It has been a rough few days here in D.C. I mean,

if I am coming off like I sound tired or weird or stressed, it's because I do feel those things. It's been a lot of feelings. Most of that I just hate watching Donald Trump get up in front of America and straight lie about my city and my home, a place like D.C. that, you know, it's where I'm from. It's where it's spent most of my life. It's pretty difficult to have the national conversation be about what a bombed out shithole my home is. So I sort of wanted to get into the basics of what's going on

and what I think it all means for everyone, not just people in D.C. So by now, you've probably seen that on Monday, the Trump administration announced that they were federalizing D.C.'s Police Force, the Metropolitan Police Department, or MPD. They also announced that they'd be sending National Guard to D.C.

Because D.C. is not a state. Trump actually, and any president, would actually have authority over D.C.'s national guard. So despite not being a state, D.C. does have a national guard. The authority over it is just in the hands of the president. So with a stroke of a pen, he can just deploy D.C.'s national guard whenever he wants. He's also sending in national guard from other states. To do this, Trump evoked what's called Section 740 of D.C.'s home rule act, which allows for the president to take over MPD for 48 hours with possible extensions up to 30 days in times of emergencies.

I'm kind of putting emergency in quotes because the emergency that he is saying is crime, but we'll get into why that doesn't really hold water in a moment. So I really can't overstate like how unprecedented this is. No president has ever done this before. Yeah, no, I somewhat relate to your pain here of your city suddenly being thrust into national spotlight as Trump sends in, you know,

military-style police, I guess aversion, although with very different methods of justifications, happened to my then city, Port and Oregon in 2020, which I'm sure most people listening are familiar with. It's very similar reporting on how it's burned to the ground. It is only a husk remains. There's just one massive bonfire where downtown used to be, and of course it's fine. But the actual presence of, you know, Groups like Bortak actually create situations where there's massive amounts of violence being done by men in army fatigues. What's in D.C. is, I think, notably different in a semi-extension of how he was testing out this type of thing in L.A. earlier this year. But with less of like an end point, like L.A.'s stuff was more about trying to push forward these deportations and renditions as quickly as possible.

he's just like taking control of the whole city, like indefinitely, it seems now for D.C. In some ways, yes. To be clear, because D.C. is not a state. It is unique from any other place in the country in that the president kind of does have more authority over D.C. than he would in other places. And so he definitely, this is definitely a federalization of our police department. In terms of it being a larger takeover of D.C., we're not there yet. This is something that he is definitely. threatened. This is something that he loves to talk about. That would include the president taking over pretty much every aspect of life in D.C. So our public schools, our roads, our social services, all of that, revoking home rule, that's what that would be. He definitely, that is definitely a threat. We should all be very aware of that. And like, it really makes clear why D.C. needs full statehood yesterday, right? Like, this is an issue that should have been solved forever ago. But right now, we're talking about, you know, specifically law enforcement and the police, which on its own is,

is, like, pretty bad. No, that's always the first step. Like, as long as you take control of the enforcement mechanism, then no one really is able to stop you from doing other things. And that's why the first steps in all of these, like, you know, weird, like, far-right Silicon Valley, like, plans for how they can fix, quote-unquote, fix the government, being able to take total control over the law enforcement. apparatus is always the first step because then you can kind of do whatever you want from

there and no one's going to stop you. Yeah, in order to revoke home rule, it would take an act of Congress, which this Congress seems more than willing to do whatever Trump wants, so that's something to keep in mind. Yeah, I think that for residents of D.C., I think the changes have been so stark in the last just a couple of 48 hours that I think it's very important to keep in mind what could be coming down the pike and definitely be aware of it. But, you know, residents need to know what this means for them and us today.

And I think that, like, it's really important to, like, highlight that. I think that because of the nature of D.C. being the nation's capital, but also where more than half a million people live, I think it's really easy for people to forget that, like, the experience of, like, people who live here like me, you know?

And I think it's in this moment, the people that I'm talking to on the ground really are, like, focused on making sure that folks know what's going on, have resources, you know, understand their rights, understand that their rights have not changed just because of this act this week. And so, I mean, the thing that I am emotionally and personally struggling with is this smear of my city being this, like, dangerous hellhole. How did you manage that? What was the experience of going through that? Like, the dissidents of, like, your experience every day navigating the streets of this place

where you live and then hearing the national conversation about it be so different from how you were experiencing it. I think eventually it kind of became like a point of pride and more like an absurd aspect, which keeps like unwanted tourism down. I don't think it really in the end bothered people in the long run. And the reason why people had a big problem with it, specifically was because of federal law enforcement

who were taking over blocks in the city. That was the actual, like, crux. Republicans constantly talk about how, you know, insert any city here is like falling apart, is over in by crime, is, you know, a fallen state, you can't go out. And like, they just kind of pick a new one to put all the attention on, like, once a week. So we're kind of like used to this, to this rhetoric. It's more so the actual, like, physical presence of law enforcement and how that changes which are able to go throughout the city and the presence of like militarized federal law enforcement. that, yeah, affects, like, just regular people. It's not just rhetoric. It actually changes how you get to interact with your city. And I guess that's the thing that actually caused people in Portland to be much more upset, which results in tens of thousands of people going out into the streets and saying,

no, we don't want you here. So I think more so than just, like, the rhetoric of how X, Y, city is burned to the ground, it's more so, yeah, like the actual physical daily life that, produces the actual tension within the city and how they gets changed and altered with federal law enforcement. Exactly. I mean, that's pretty much what's happening on my streets in D.C. So about 850 officers and agents took part in this, what they called, massive law enforcement surge across D.C., where they had between 100 and 200 soldiers out patrolling the streets like beat cops at any given time. And so, you know, some of the things that we've seen in the last

couple of days, just simply as a long-time resident, like, just simply do not make sense, right? Having federal agents patrol places like Georgetown, which is very safe at 10 o'clock at night, that happened last night. Well, Georgetown actually might be the most dangerous place in the city. Well, in some ways, right? But, like, if you're thinking about, like, the kind of crime they're talking tough about. Yeah, yes. Or, like, the National Mall at 2 p.m. on a weekday.

Places where it's like, it don't even make sense for y'all to be posted up there. you know, there was a big display of force and arrests on my block just last night in the middle of the night where we looked at the window and it was car after car after car of Border Patrol. They set up the lights. They made arrests. And my block is residential. So it's like places where it's like it doesn't even seem to be making sense. And that's why we know it's really not about crime. All of the stuff that Trump said about crime and his presser, I mean, it was it was all just live. Like, I guess I don't need to tell anybody listening to this, but like, in case you are curious whether or not there's any credence to the fact, well, is crime going up in D.C.? That is not true, right? So violent crimes have been going down the past two years in D.C. consistently. Absolutely. So it is true that D.C. did have a spike in crime in 2023. But since then, crime is going down. If you watched that press conference, he threw out a lot of stats about how crime is going in the wrong direction. By every measure, that's simply not true. He said that in 2023, the murder. rate in D.C. reached the highest rate. This is him. He said, probably ever, going back 25 years, but that they don't know what that means because the data just only goes back 25 years, saying basically that they didn't collect crime statistics way back then. Think about that for a

second. Twenty-five years ago was the year 2000. Do you really think that crime data was not being collected in the year 2000? It absolutely was. We absolutely know what crime and D.C. looked like in the year 2000 and beyond. And so if there's one thing people might know about D.C. is that in the 80s and the 90s, we were hit hard by the crack epidemic crime was genuinely very high. The city's own crime statistics, which we did collect from the 70s, 80s, and 90s when the population in D.C. was smaller, showed that there was much more higher numbers of homicides than murder. So that's not just a lie. It's also a weird, obvious lie. And one that when I watched the presser, I almost didn't catch. It wasn't until I sat down and went through the nose. And I was

like, oh, this is not just a lie. This is like a weird, glaring lie. I can't believe I, like, I guess I say that to say, there are so many lies being thrown out in a short amount of time. When they're all washing over you, it's kind of hard to catch them one by one. But then when you actually sit down, you're like, wow, this was just bullshit. Yeah, that's the intention. That's what Steve Bannon calls, like, muzzle velocity. You have to shoot out these things constantly, one after another, so that it's impossible to actually hone in and quote unquote debunk each and every one. Because by the time you're doing that, they've already moved on to 15 new things.

never keep up with it. And that's like the whole intention. That's like how they craft literally just like their sentences so that you can't just like debunk everything they say because they just throw it all out there. And it creates this massive structure that even if you try tripping away at the sides, it doesn't actually make any effect. And it doesn't matter at all. And like, what's the, what's the real effect they're trying to do here with sending in National Guard, federalizing the police? It's to like scare black people and it's to scare homeless people. And that's really what they actually mean when they say there's high crime. And I think D.C. is what, like the, has like the third largest black population in the country? That's right. We

formerly called Chocolate City. We're more like a latte city today. But yeah, we have a heavily black and brown population here. Yeah. That's what Trump's actually like focusing on. That's actually what he's doing. I feel like that's, that should be pretty clear to anyone who's like familiar with like crime panic narratives and how they've been strategically deployed throughout the past 25 years and you know 30 40 years of the country yeah i mean i don't see how somebody could see what's happening and see the way that he is clearly like like even at that presser the list of cities he was planning on going to next chicago baltimore it's like okay heavily black cities with black political leadership and black mayor oakland this is very clear what's going on yeah

interesting interesting choice buddy yeah like what do all these places have in common right In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls. girls into thinking fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks? These are the questions we explore in

hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode will explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history, from the fake Shakespeare's to balloon boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fud. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a people's princess, but now you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new

podcast, Fud around and find out. I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy light as I turn to bow. balance it all, from my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me, but this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to fud around

and find out, a production of IHeart women's sports and partnership with unanimous media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked. I'm Maria Inojosa. I dreamt of having a place where voices

that have been historically sidelined would instead be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Cultural. As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news, they're creating this narrative that immigrants or criminals.

This is about everyone's freedom of speech. Nobody expected two popes from the American continent to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Imile Perez, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things like exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture. You'll hear from people like Congresswoman, AOC. I don't want to give them my fear.

I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I am Scotty Landis, and we host Bananas. Podcasts with wonderful guests like Whitney Cummings. And tackle the truly tough questions. Why is cool mom an insult, but mom is fine?

No. I always say, Kurt, it's a fun dad. Fun dad and cool mom. That's cool for me. We also dig into important life stuff. Like, why our last names would make the worst hyphen ever. My last name is Cummings. I have sympathy for nobody.

Yeah, mine's brown-olar, but with an H. So it looks like brown holer. Okay, that's, okay. Yours might be worse. We can never get married. Yeah. Listen to this episode with Whitney Cummings and check out new episodes of bananas every Tuesday on the exactly right network.

Listen to bananas on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. One of the things I've seen people say is that this whole thing is about the attack on the form of, or Doge staff are known as Big Balls. Big Balls. That's his technical term. Yes. Possibly to receive the presidential medal of, I think, freedom. I think he got a medal.

I think it happened. It's quite possible. So we should show Big Balls some respect for his struggles, I guess. Yeah, I mean, it's, I never thought I was through the day where I'd be, like, reporting on a story happening in the city and talking about somebody named Big Balls, but here we go. Really? you didn't see this covet. You didn't see.

This wasn't on my bingo card, Gare. For a podcast that I host about local D.C. news and issues called CityC. DC, I interviewed Mark C. Graves, who was like a long-time D.C. reporter. And I said, oh, is there any truth to the idea that this attack on big balls is like, what was the impetus to all this? That Elon Musk was like, Trump, you need to federalize D.C.'s police department because of what happened to my former staffer. And I understand why people, like where that narrative was coming from.

But he really pointed out. something, which is that, you know, Trump has been talking about taking over D.C.'s Police Department for a very long time. He referenced it during his first administration a little bit, a lot less than he did at the second time around. He really dialed it up in his second campaign. He began talking about it even in his first few months in office by threatening to take control over MPD if our mayor, Muriel Bowser, did not make certain concessions like clearing homeless encampments near the White House and removing Black Lives Matter plaza from outside the White House. He also threatened to take over MPD and D.C. and

general when a former Trump administration staffer, Mike Gill, was shot and killed during a carjacking in D.C. back in February. So when that happened, again, he was like, I'm taking over MPD, I'm taking over MPD. So, well, the big balls thing. Alleged carjacking of big balls. I will say this. You know those stories where you're like, we're going to get more information about this. So it's best to just wait. I have a, I don't know anything. I don't have any special details, but like, my sense is this is one of those situations where it's like, you know, first the story, was I was with a girlfriend in her car, and we were carjacked by two unarmed teens. Then Elon Musk, super spreader of misinformation that he is, was like, oh, he was attacked while

trying to rescue an elderly woman. Like, I just have seen enough about crime in D.C. I am looking forward to hearing more information about what actually went down there. I'll just put it that way, if that makes sense. With Mr. Big Balls. With Mr. Big Balls. I guess Mr. Balls, I guess. Big is the first name. Mr. Balls. Please, Mr. Balls is my father.

And so, yeah, like, I think the Big Balls thing might have been very convenient timing or, like, a good excuse to actually move forward. But I think narratives that Big Balls got attacked and now Trump is taking over MPD, I think that, like, doesn't really tell the whole story, which is that this has been a long time coming. This has been something that Trump has been, like, obsessed with for quite some time, even going back from before his second administration. And there's been like a media campaign the past few months of specifically taking like public transit robbery videos and making them super viral of like teens who will like steal like designer clothes on public transit. Yeah. And and turning, turning this into like a national epidemic. And again, you could look at look at the like the shoplifting videos from from a few years ago that even though crime was going down, there was videos that very visible videos of shoplifting that went super viral. help form this this crime wave narrative that the statistics don't necessarily support to the

point where you have Republicans actually like denying the FBI's own crime statistics at the FBI famously soft on crime institution the FBI but Republicans saying that these these stats have to be wrong because we all know that there's crime everywhere and like how do we know that because you're seeing like a TikTok video about it and that's your proof is you saw one or two videos of like people robbing an Apple store and now you think that crime must be statistically higher everywhere? Okay. Yeah, and I think that's why the Big Ball's narrative continues to really be so sticky. Ooh, I don't like that. Yeah, I don't mean it how it sounds. But like, it doesn't matter if you have statistics from the FBI saying that crime is going down,

whatever, whatever, when you, if you have a visceral image of like a bloodied big balls beaten on the street, right? Like, and so I think that it's really, interesting how, I mean, I guess I'll just say it, how easily manipulated people are. Oh, yeah. And how they're able to go against the facts when they are confronted with an image of, like, teens robbing a CVS or like, like, yeah, like, alluded out CVS because that is so visceral. And so that's something I really struggled with is like, I don't know how to counter these emotionally charged visceral TikTok videos and images that present one thing with facts.

Like, it's like very difficult to be like, well, the data says this. when people are being motivated by a different thing. No, and that's why it's almost kind of fruitless to go about that strategy at this point. And, like, I don't know how to approach this. And I think it's also worth mentioning, like, we are not immune to this either. We might get targeted with, like, different narratives. Maybe a CVS robbery doesn't do it for us. But, no, like, everyone's motivated by, like, emotional reactions to things that we see as, like,

bad or often horrific. And that does change the way that we understand, like, the physical aspects, like the statistical patterns of the world. Very clearly, like we're emotional creatures. That's what drives us. The fact that the emotional plight of Big Balls is driving the ruling party in the country right now is just a little bit more notable

because it's one white guy named Big Balls. Yeah, it's true. And it almost doesn't even make sense to, like, combat the idea that this is about crime. But I know it's not about crime because, one, the Trump administration recently made very drastic cuts to D.C. security funding, and so if he was really very invested in crime in D.C. seems like something that his administration would not have done. Also, something that our mayor,

who I do want to talk about, has said is that, as you were sort of alluding to earlier, federal agents and military personnel are not the people who are going to be useful when it comes to D.C. like, street crime. These are people who probably aren't even informed about D.C.'s local ordinances and laws. Why would they be, right? And so these are not people whose jobs it is to be out engaging with civilians about quality of life crimes like open containers or drinking on sidewalks. I saw a pretty viral video of the police going up and stopping somebody for he says smoking a joint on his porch. In D.C., you are allowed to possess marijuana. But he also was like, just so you know, Trump is cracking down on all of these quality of life crimes.

So you can't drink a beer on your portion anymore. That's incorrect. In the District of Columbia, you absolutely can drink alcohol on your private property outside. And it's like, well, how would he know? He's not even from here. He's a federal agent. So, like, these are not people who are. trained or skilled in combating the kind of civilian-level street crime that we're seeing

them do. This is just not an appropriate use of these people. And so the thing that kind of gets me is that for the amount of money that we are spending on having federal agents deal with low-level street crime, like per MPD and per the DOJ's own statistics, the kind of crimes that they have been combating this week are things like open container, fair evasion. It was like, yeah, you needed an FBI agent to deal with this. What are you talking? about. With the money that we're spending, we probably could house every single unhoused person in the District of Columbia with the money that we are spending on this nonsense. It's like that's the thing that makes me so angry. I don't want to live in a city that's full of crime. Luckily,

I don't because crime is going down. But if you genuinely wanted to combat crime, there is a reasonable way to do this. And this is just a big show of force to freak everybody out and basically demonstrate that Trump can go into cities and do this. It's not actually about lower were in crime, the reason why they would never want to house people is because they don't actually want to. They don't want homeless people to live good lives. They want to exercise power. That's the primary motivator. And not only can bringing an out-of-state police be like inconvenient, it can have lethal consequences. Right. Because they do not know the areas that they're policing. They do not know the people in those areas. They don't understand what

it's actually like. When I was at the Republican National Conference Committee, I don't know. How do I not know what the R&C is actually called? Convention? I think it depends on if you're talking about the event or the like entity. The entity. When I was at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last year, I responded to the scene of a police shooting where police from out of state who were brought in for the convention were policing outside of the area of the convention

and shot and killed a homeless black man because they did not understand. where the homeless people, like, have their encampments, how they solve disputes, how people can get into fights, but that does not mean, like, you have to kill people who are having a fight. So, no, this has drastic consequences, something that the police in Milwaukee would have, would have been aware of this encampment, would have possibly been aware of the normal way that homeless people can get into fights with each other, but are not going to kill each other. Instead, you have an out-of-state cop from, like, Ohio or something, get freaked out that two people are fighting and then shoot one of them. And stuff like this is

why, like, out-of-state police are so dangerous when they're being brought into communities that they really just don't understand. Exactly that. You know, I did an interview with a local community organizer in D.C., and they told me pretty much the same thing, that there is an aspect of trust and relationship building that goes into not just, like, solving crimes, but combating crimes before they start, right? Like, there is a level of deep relationship building and trust building that has to be in effect there. And that is what actually can sometimes make communities safer. But it comes to unhoused people and immigrants, these are not people who are committing crimes. These are people who are statistically more likely to be the victims of crimes. And so when you

bring in outside forces who do not have trust, who do not, who have not built that relationship, and they're terrorizing the communities that are statistically more likely to be the victims of crime, that's going to be the thing that results in the opposite of crime going down, right? Because you are damaging whatever trust and whatever relationship and whatever understandings have been built with this community and law enforcement going forward, right? And so if we're genuinely interested in building safer communities, bringing in all of these outside military and federal personnel is simply not how you do it. That's how I know it's bullshit.

They don't actually care about any of this. And like, it is sort of crazy making because I feel like they want us spinning out about all of this stuff, all of this bullshit that they're spinning, which fucking guilty is charged for me this week is all I've been doing. But, you know, it's just, it's this, they're so effective at the spin and the manipulation. No, one of the former Fox News hosts who somehow has a position in government. Hengseth? No, it was another. No, no, there is another. This is, which one? It was one of the ones who looks like your evil aunt. Oh, uh, Janine Piero? Yes.

Oh, my God. I'm glad that we could figure that out based on that description. That's all you had to say. But she was specifically asked, like, what are you going to do to address the root cause of crime? And she says, we don't want to. We're not going to. That's not what we're actually focusing on. We're focusing on just, like, eliminating crime.

Yeah. Through, like, force, through intimidation and not even actually eliminating crime. Just exercising power, which is what they're actually trying to say. And that's the whole point of this. Yes, and it's not just crime writ large through force. It is crime in cities that are run by Democrats and have heavily black and brown populations because you don't see them going into white communities that have crime, which white communities do have crime. You don't see them going into like cities where they have Republican mayors where crime is also quite bad. No, that's not even, that's not even like part of the conversation.

It is very clear what they are saying. This is an attack. It's about power. Yeah, this is a show of power to consider. immunities that we don't like. And I have to say something about this, which is that, you know, when this first happened, when I was interviewing that longtime reporter Mark Seagraves, something that he told me that really scared me was that the administration is doing this entirely legally and by the book. He was like, oh, it's clear that they are following every letter of the law

to the point where the first statement out of our mayor's office was that they were not challenging this takeover of MPD because they did not feel like they had any kind of legal grounds to do so, which is grim. really tells me that they've got their act together. There was a time where people were like, oh, they're just going to do things and see what sticks and see what, you know, see what gets challenged in court, see what they can get away with.

It really tells me a lot that in this instance, they're like, we're doing this by the book so that there is no legal challenge to what we are doing. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed, real fairies. But even more extraordinary than the magazine article's claim was the identity of the man who wrote the article, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the man who wrote Sherlock Holmes. Yes, the man who invented literature's most brilliant detective was fooled by two girls into thinking

fairies were real. How did they do it? And why does it seem like so many smart people keep falling for outlandish tricks. These are the questions we explore in Hoax, a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode will explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history,

from the fake Shakespeare's to Balloon Boys, and try to answer the question of why we believe what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey guys, it's AZ Fudd. You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion and recent most outstanding player. You may even know me as a People's Princess.

But now, you're also going to know me as your favorite host. Every week on my new podcast, Fud around and find out, I'll give you an inside look at everything happening in my crazy light as I try to balance it all. From my travels across the globe to preparing for another run at the Natty with my Yukon Huskies to just try to make it to my midterms on time. You'll get the inside scoop on everything. I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court.

You'll even get to have some fun with the fud family. So if you follow me on social media or watch me on TV, you may think you know me. But this show is the only place where you can really fud around and find out. Listen to fud around and find out, a production of IHart Women's Sports and Partnership with Unanimous Media on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. When I became a journalist, I was the first Latina in the newsrooms where I worked.

I'm Maria Inojosa. I dreamt of having a place where voices that have been historically sidelined would instead be centered. For over 30 years now, Latino USA has been that place. This is Latino USA, the Radio Journal of News and Culture. As the longest running Latino news and culture show in the United States, Latino USA delivers the stories that truly matter to all of us. From sharp and deep analysis of the most pressing news, They're creating these narrative that immigrants are criminals.

This is about everyone's freedom of speech. Nobody expected two popes from the American continent to stories about our cultures and our identities. When you do get a trans character like Imidavetes, the trans community is going to push back on that. Colorism, all of these things that exist in Mexican culture and Latino culture. You'll hear from people like Congresswoman, AOC. I don't want to give them my fear.

I'm not going to give them my fear. Listen to Latino USA as part of the My Cultura Podcast Network, available on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Kurt Brown-Oller. And I am Scotty Landis, and we host Bananas, the Weird News Podcasts with wonderful guests like Whitney Cummings. And tackle the truly tough questions. Why is cool mom an insult, but mom is fine? No.

I always say, Kurt's a fun dad. Fun dad and cool mom. That's cool for me. We also dig into important life stuff. Like, why our last names would make the worst hyphen ever? My last name is Cummings. I have sympathy for nobody. Yeah, mine's brown-olar, but with an H.

So it looks like brown-holer. Okay, that's, okay, yours might be worse. We can never get married. Yeah. Listen to this episode with Whitney Cummings and check out new episodes of bananas every Tuesday on the exactly right network. Listen to bananas on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

What has the reaction been like from Lick City Government? I mean, I will say I came on this podcast a while ago, and I'll say, like, I don't want to say I defended our mayor, Muriel Bowser, but I did want to say, like, she is in a position that no other elected official in the country is in where she has to sort of play nice with a madman. I came on the show and I said that she had this strategy of appeasement and making concessions, which, you know, say what you would about it. I believe was grounded in an attempt to like work with Trump to avoid worse outcomes. To avoid this from happening. To avoid this from happening. So my point is now, I mean, it really shows you the futality of trying to make concessions with a fascist, right?

What's the point? Yeah. Because the thing that we were trying to avoid, the thing that all of these little appeasements and concessions were meant to avoid has happened. Yeah. To be clear, Trump has not taken over D.C. entirely and home rule still stands. And so the very worst outcome has not happened yet, but this is pretty damn bad. And so part of me is like, what did all those concessions get you? And today, just this morning, she has totally flipped her tune on this.

She actually flew to Marlago to see Trump yesterday, and she came back saying, well, maybe having more law enforcement in communities in D.C. will make people safer. And I just cannot express to you how much it feels like, I want to speak to myself. It feels like we have been abandoned by leadership when we need it most, right? In D.C., we have the mayor, Mariel Bowser, who I just told you about. We have a congressional representative, Eleanor Holmes Norton, who has a long time history of being a fighter and protector of D.C.'s autonomy. However, she can't vote, so she doesn't really have a lot of power. And a big conversation in D.C. has been the fact that she is really aging. She is, like, I think the second oldest member of Congress in the United

States. And it just, we don't feel like we have anybody who can fight for us, who can speak up for us. And I will say this, like, I'm very disappointed in our mayor. I'm very disappointed in the fact that she seems to have really been behind Trump on this. She does have a not terrible relationship with Trump, which in some ways can be good or bad depending on how you look at it. But I went into this having a sense that, oh, well, I think our mayor is going to fight for us. Our mayor is going to fight for D.C.'s autonomy. And I'm coming out of it thinking, I don't think that she is fighting for us. Like, the way that I would want her to be positioning herself in this moment, I'm not seeing her do. And the reality is, unfortunately, the mayor of

D.C. doesn't really have a lot of power and protection. She doesn't, when you compare that to somebody like Gavin Newsom, who, when Trump sent the National Guard into L.A., knows that he has, like, the power of two senators behind him, right? Like, our mayor doesn't have that. And it just really made clear when it comes to protecting D.C., we're really on our own. We're really all we have. We don't really have a lot of power. We are really depending on folks like you care to get the word out to people who do have elected officials that they can call and advocate because, like, there's really nobody to call. And I will say, I will say this. If the worst thing happens and D.C.'s home rule is overturned, which would be a disaster. Like, I should come back on the show

and talk about what that would look like. If that happens, D.C. will have no one. The only people who will be in charge of how D.C. is run is Trump. And a small handful of people that he would personally appoint to be the commissioner of D.C. So the last time that D.C. did not have home rule. It was the only people who were in charge were the president. And I think it was three commissioners that he personally appointed. None of these people lived in D.C. other than

the president who lived in the White House. And so down to the smallest aspect of city life. I'm talking about social services, D.C. Health Lake, unemployment, the streets, the schools, all of that would be run by President Trump. I cannot express to you what a disaster this would be. And the smallest thing

getting done in D.C. down to a pothole being repaved would take congressional oversight. So anybody who thinks that that is a reasonable way to run a city, oh my God. Wake up! Well, I am not thrilled about the idea of Commissioner Big Balls. Because that would happen.

You know that. And it's funny you mentioned Newsom. Newsom was another guy who was trying to make concessions with Trump, specifically around like trans sports. Oh my God. Don't even get me started. And he tried to, you know, make those sort of like concessions and like roll back some aspects of supporting trans people in schools and trans kids. And then Trump's Department of Education still went after California

schools. So like, yeah, no matter what concessions you give, they will still go after you. Earlier you mentioned there was like arrest on your block last night. Like how how is this affected? Yeah, like daily life for you and other other residents of like D.C. so far. It has been grim. You know, we've seen Border Patrol, IAS, DEA, FBI, National Guard, just walking the streets. And again, like, something about D.C. is that in August, pretty much everybody leaves towns with a bit of a ghost town. There is nothing that justifies the massive disruption in city services that has happened.

On my street last night, they had a row of Border Patrol SUVs blocking traffic for genuinely no reason, like the level to which they are purposely disrupting the flow of city life cannot be overstated. And, you know, I want to make it clear. Also, this is, as you said, a real attack on the unhoused community in D.C. We have already seen very disturbing images of unhoused people being taken away by police. Yesterday, the White House said that they were going to be forcibly removing unhoused people, forcing them into shelters, hospitals, or jails. And if they didn't go, they would face fines. I mean, finding somebody who was living on the street, I mean, like, what are you doing? Yeah, finding someone who has no money. Yeah. And D.C. has a long

history of having an issue with the unhoused community. We do not have enough shelters to accommodate people. And even if we did, not everybody's going to want to go to a shelter. And so this has been an issue long before Trump was ever in D.C. And it does take some complexity and thoughtfulness to solve it, not just going in and removing people by brute force. Like, that is the absolute worst thing that you can be doing for this. No, I mean, that relates to Trump's like anti-vagrancy, executive order from a few weeks ago where he wants to lock homeless people up in like mental hospitals

and jails and like forcibly so and like change the rules for how shelters work, how shelters can get funding mandatory like drug treatments and yeah really actually just trying to like involuntarily

commit people into civil institutions. Exactly. I see parts of what he's doing in D.C. is trying to demonstrate his plan for that and how he wants that to spread across the country and just, yeah, taking people off the street, but then locking them either in a jail or onto like a hospital bed. Yes. And there was also an ice raid at the Home Depot out in Northeast this week. Basically, I do think that first and foremost, this is an attack on D.C.'s black, brown,

immigrant and unhoused community. But, you know, I've seen images of empty. bars and empty restaurants where ice and border patrol are inside the place. Yeah, why would you want to go out to if there's the fucking like the military grading around? Yes, it's fucking up the vibes, right? Like that's, I will say like so in addition to the attacks on these vulnerable communities, like if you want to have a community where people feel safe to go out, they want to spend money, they want to like enjoy the city. The vibes

are terrible. This is, this is just everything that makes DC great and a good place to live and a place that people want to come. And spend time and start their families, this kind of show of force goes against that and threatens that. It really does. Like, DC is a particular place. It's like, why this is my home. This kind of stuff really threatens our way of life in ways that are just, it really is just sad. I'm not sure if you have, like, examples like what people are trying to do to, to cope with this or try to, like, stand their ground in their community, I guess. But like, how are people like channeling their frustration right now?

Well, there was a very viral video of somebody throwing a sub sandwich at a military personnel on U Street. So. Well, that's a start. As long as we, if we can get 50,000 people with sub sandwiches, we might be on to something. The hero DC needs. So that's one. Literally the hero DC needs. Yeah.

I see what you did there. Yeah, I would say, so there are, I feel grateful that there are organizations in D.C., like local organizations that were preparing for this. And so organizations like Free DC, I spoke to one of the representatives earlier this week about what they're doing and they're really focused on giving residents resources and so they're running cop watching trainings. That's good. That's good.

They're making sure that folks know that their rights have not changed, know their rights. If an agent comes up to you to talk to you, they're making sure people know what they do and don't have to say in those situations, which I think is important. People should definitely check out FreeC. They've been around since the 60s,

so they have been protecting DC's autonomy for a very long time. one of the things that they were telling folks to do was, do you remember how in 2020 people would go outside and bang pots and pans to thank essential workers and medical personnel? Yes. They were telling folks, because the streets feel so militarized, not everybody's going to feel like going out to a protest or going out to a march.

At 8 o'clock at night, make as much noise as you can, whether it's from your open window or from your block or from your stoop, as a way to, like, demonstrate opposition to this. And so if you want more information about the kinds of that kind of organizing that they're trying to provide for folks, definitely check out free D.C. But I do think, I mean, the vibes are rage. And I hate that that rage feels so impotent that we, that like, this is just another of a million examples of why we need full state. We've needed it for so long because we are being disenfranchised. We have the possibility that people in power in D.C. could be people. people that nobody elected. Trump could appoint anybody as commissioner of DC.

And big balls. Yeah, it could be big balls, right? And so we are in a situation that is so grim. And I think that shows, you know, people, people are really feeling that. And I guess one thing I want to, I want to add is that I was talking earlier about how it's frustrating that I find that I'm often in this conversation, like, trying to combat Trump. And I feel, I feel like I'm in a stance that I hate, which is this reactive stance where he spews. bullshit and I feel like it's my job to debunk it. And it's like, well, it's bullshit. I could be doing other things. I hate that we have gotten this narrative that cities are bad. And that goes against our shared understanding of this country where cities are good. If you live in a city,

don't let Trump turn you against city life. Don't let Trump turn you against cities. People want to be in cities. Cities are good. Cities are safe. Cities are cool to live in. People want to be in the city. If people didn't want to live in D.C., my rent wouldn't be so goddamn high, right? People want to be here for a reason. When Trump got up on that presser and talked about how tourists come to D.C., this and that, he's right. If D.C. were truly a bombed out hellhole, tourists wouldn't want to bring their families here. Cities are good. And I don't think that we should let Trump rewrite the narrative that our cities are bad. Cities are good. They are good places to be. We don't have to get caught up in his fake bullshit narrative of demonizing cities. So that's why I think everyone should travel to D.C. Let's all go to the Capitol, put on some, put on some math. wave some flags and just get in there to show we can take it over. We can take the city back. Joe Biden, 28. Let's go. Yeah.

I mean, I did see this interview on News Nation where I think it was Mehdi Hassan was talking to some shithead. And he was like, oh, if Trump cares about crime so much, why did he pardon a bunch of January 6 attackers who threatened and attacked law enforcement? And it's like, oh, he would, the interviewer was just like, oh, come on, come on. And you will talk about that? Come on. And it's like, okay, I thought, tough on crime, huh? Tough on crime. Okay. No, it's, it's, it's crime with three ellipsies, not the actual category of crime. Exactly. Crime, wink, wink.

Yeah, it's like, we know what they're, what they're trying to say. But honestly, just talking to you about this has made me feel a lot better. I've been raging all week. So this is the first time that I feel like I've actually, like, gotten it all out. So thank you for talking to me about it. Yeah, no, we will, we will. certainly keep up with what's happening in D.C., with, you know, how long National Guard's going to be there, how long this federalization lasts. Maybe they'll eliminate all crime within 30 days and things will go back to normal. Who knows? I mean, the day that he took over, there was a shooting like an hour or two later. So I was like, oh, I thought we're going to handle this. Well, I guess not. But no, we will keep up with this as well as Trump's promises to go further and expand to five other cities.

So thank you for sharing your thoughts and experiences as a resident of D.C., Bridget. Thank you for having me. And yeah, like, if you're out there in D.C., stay safe, keep hope alive. We're all we got. Where else can people find you on the Internet, Bridget? Besides, you know, on the steps of the Capitol waving an American flag.

Yeah, in a mask. Yeah. You can find me at my podcasts. I have a podcast on IHeartRadio called There Are No Girls on the Internet. I have a podcast about local D.C. news and issues called Citicast DC. You can also find me on Instagram at Bridgett, Marine, D.C., on TikTok at Bridgett, Marine, D.C. Or on YouTube at There Are No Girls on the Internet. Cheers.

It Could Happen here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Coolzone 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. In 1920, a magazine article announced something incredible. Two young girls had photographed real fairies. But even more incredible, that article was written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle,

the man who invented Sherlock Holmes. How did he fall for that? Hoax is a new podcast from me, Dana Schwartz, the host of Noble Blood. And me, Lizzie Logan. Every episode, we'll explore one of the most audacious and ambitious tricks in history and try to answer the question, why we believe, what we believe. Listen to Hoax on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, guys, it's AZ Fudd.

You may know me as a gold medalist. You may know me as an NCAA national champion. You may even know me as a People's Princess. Every week on my new podcast, Fud Around and Find Out, I'll be talking to some special guests about pop culture, basketball, and what it's like to be a professional athlete on and off the court. Listen to Fud Around and Find Out, a production of IHart Women's Sports in partnership with Unanimous Media

on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Welcome to Pretty Private with Ebene, the podcast where silence is broken and stories are set free. I'm Ebeney, and every Tuesday I'll be sharing all new anonymous stories that would challenge your perceptions and give you new insight on the people around you. Every Tuesday, make sure you listen to Pretty Private from the Black Effect Podcast Network. Tune in on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Our IHeart Radio Music Festival, presented by Capital One, is coming back to Las Vegas. Vegas, September 19th and 20th.

On your feet. Streaming live only on Hulu. Ladies and gentlemen. Brian Adams. Ed Sheeran. Fade. Chlorilla. Jellyroll.

John Fogarty. Lil Wayne. L.L. Cool J. Mariah. Maroon 5. Sammy Hagar. Tate McCray. The offspring.

Tim McRaw. Tickets are on sale now at AXS.com. Get your tickets today. AXS.com. This is an I-Heart podcast. Thank you.