The Current - Trump puts Washington, D.C police under federal power, but why?

Episode Date: August 13, 2025

U.S. politics has not slowed down this summer. President Donald Trump says Washington D.C. is a “nightmare of murder and crime,” despite violent crime numbers going down. So, he has put the police in the capital under federal power. We talk to Molly Ball from The Wall Street Journal, David A. Graham from The Atlantic, and Andrew Egger from The Bulwark about what this means for the rest of the U.S. — and more.

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Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. He can't have it. He can't have it. Trump can't have it. Trump can't have it. Free D.C. Free D.C. Protesters outside the White House

after U.S. President Donald Trump put the Washington, D.C. police under federal power, saying crime in the Capitol was. out of control. Those protesters aren't the only ones pushing back. Democrats have decried the move as heavy-handed overreach. Many have pointed out that violent crime is actually falling in that city. But the president is forging ahead and told reporters he may do the same in other cities. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland, we don't even mention that anymore. They're so far gone. We're not going to let it happen. We're not going to lose our cities over this, and this will go further.

We're starting very strongly with D.C., and we're going to clean it up real quick, very quickly, as they say. The controversy is just one of several making headlines in U.S. politics. There's also daily drama over tariffs, a political standoff in Texas over redrawing voting district lines, and, of course, a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday. For the latest, I'm joined by three political reports. reporters. David A. Graham is a staff writer for the Atlantic magazine. He is in Durham, North Carolina. Molly Ball is with the Wall Street Journal and is the senior political correspondent there in Washington, D.C. And Andrew Eggers is the White House correspondent for the news website, The Bullwark. Good morning to all of you.

Hello, good morning. Molly, I'll start with you. National Guard members arriving in the Capitol last night. That's what we're hearing. What do we know so far of what's going on? Well, the administration has reported that 800 National Guard members arrived on the streets of D.C. last night and made 23 arrests overnight for a variety of crimes. I think we're all sort of waiting to see how this unfolds and what they're going to actually do. And also what comes next with the federalization of the police force. We've seen the D.C. mayor, Muriel Bowser, who, try to strike a sort of cooperative or conciliatory tone with the administration, basically taking the stance that this is not something she has the power to change, so she's going to try to make the best of it.

Andrew, we heard a little bit about Trump's rationale for doing this, but just walk us through exactly why he's doing this now, the National Guard, walking the streets in D.C. Well, it's interesting because there's, I think, part of the uncertainty that Molly's talking about is that we don't actually know how much this is going to correspond with the kind of rationale that Trump laid out the other day at the White House. Because when the president speaks about this, he talks in unbelievably sort of grandiose terms about violence spiraling out of control, about D.C. being less safe than Baghdad, about the

need to sort of unleash police officers and let them be more violent and use more force with potential lawbreakers because he says that's sort of the only language they understand is force. So you get this kind of tone coming from the president. And yet, I think what we're all waiting to see is, is how much the rollout resembles that tone and how much the rollout resembles just sort of what we saw last night, which is, okay, maybe there's a new chain of command here. Maybe there's some new procedures. Certainly, there's new things in the form of federal troops and federal law enforcement, sort of walking the streets on these presence patrols. But it's not yet clear what the sort of policies are going to look like in terms of whether any of those are going to be

implemented and how much this will actually resemble the very lurid vision that the president laid out when he spoke about it the other day. David, this has already kind of played out in L.A. has it not? That's right. You know, we saw the California National Guard federalized sent L.A. We also saw a Marine sent out. And, you know, what that looked like in principle, or in practice was you saw some National Guard on the streets, but most of the Marines didn't have a lot to do, and they were quietly sent home. It was a little bit of a different situation. You know, they were there sort of ostensibly to protect ICE while it was doing immigration

operations. And in D.C., there isn't something specific like that. It's a more generalized situation. But we do have a little bit of precedent for Trump wanting to send troops into big cities. Yeah. And do you think, David, he'll go to other cities? He's made the vow that he's going to. You know, the way Trump works is he tends to send up some trial balloons.

And I would look at D.C. as one of those. he has more legal authority to act in D.C. because the D.C. National Guard is under his control rather than under the control of some governor as it is in other states. You know, it's an unusual jurisdiction. But I do think if it is politically successful, if it is successful as a policy, we'll see Trump try to do that in other places. The reaction, Molly, tell me a little bit more about the protests that have been going on already. Yeah, well, you heard some sound from some of the street protests and demonstrations. This is not, Washington, D.C. is not a place where Donald Trump is very popular. In fact, he got less than

7% of the vote in the presidential election last November. So this is politically not a favorable terrain for Trump. The reaction from Democrats has been very mixed. They, I think, are a little bit confused about how to approach this issue. You have some Democrats arguing that the problem that Trump is describing is overblown, pointing to these statistics about crime coming down. Other Democrats have learned from the experience of the last few years that voters don't like being told that the dangers that they perceive essentially aren't real. And so they've tried to say, well, crime is a problem, but this is not the right approach to it. Others have accused Trump of basically staging a stunt to distract from other controversies that, uh,

that his administration has been embroiled in, particularly the Jeffrey Epstein files or the sort of negative indicators related to the economy. And then lastly, many Democrats have decried this as an authoritarian overreach, talking about this in combination with things like what he did in Los Angeles and making the case that this is all about sort of instituting an authoritarian crackdown on the streets of major American cities and crushing dissent. You mentioned the Epstein files. Andrew, where are we with that? Now, is the public still interested in learning more? Well, this is, I mean, this is sort of the pattern that you see with a lot of these Trump stories, which is that things get sort of pushed out of the public consciousness just by new

things arriving on the scene, right? We still have a lot of outstanding questions about the, the Trump administration's handling of those files. We did get some new headlines. this week in terms of a judge in Florida declining to release new grand jury information that the White House had requested they released. The White House had said maybe there'd be some big new revelations in there. The judge said there weren't. So it's not like we're not getting new developments in this story, but I mean, as sort of evidenced by this program, right?

I mean, there's only so much time in the day to talk about this stuff. And Trump is as good as he is at anything good at sort of changing the subject and reorienting the national conversation to terms that he feels are more favorable to him, to his homefield advantage. David, how are our people Trump supporters? How are they managing this conversation? Because they had said, day one, we're going to learn more about the Epstein files. And how are they twisting that argument now to justify Trump's move on this?

Well, you know, I think there's a lot of uncountable squirming. And you see some splintering, I think, among Trump supporters. There are people who really believe that there is something very important hidden in the Epstein files, whatever that might be, and they want to see them. There are people who see this as mostly a political bludgeon against Trump, and their impulse is to defend him, and so they're happy to, you know, turn subject to something else like crime in D.C. And there are a lot of people who I think are kind of waiting to see where it goes and sitting it out. And it's been a very long stretch that this has dominated with

headlines, you know, really about as long as I can remember anything saying the main story in politics during Trump's time as president in both terms. So, you know, there's been a long period of waiting and squirming, I think, during that. Guess who just bundled their home and auto with Desjardin insurance? Well, look at you, all grown up and saving money. Yes, I am. Mom told you to do it, didn't she? Yes, she did.

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I want to talk about gerrymandering because that's also been dominating the headlines. There are so many headlines, of course, in all of this. This is happening in Texas. First and foremost, Republicans want to redraw voting lines to add seats. Democrat lawmakers have left the state. I think they're still out trying to block the vote, although I see this morning they say they're coming back.

I think, Molly, where is this standoff and how do you see this ending? There is one report that says that the Democrats may be coming back for a second special session in Texas. I've also seen some reporting that suggests that may not be the case. So I don't think we know just yet, but at least for the duration of this first special session that was called, the Democrats did succeed in at least stalling. the action that the Texas legislature and the Republicans wanted to take. You know, this all came about because the House of Representatives is very narrowly divided. They're currently 219 Republicans and 212 Democrats.

So the Democrats would only need to win a few more seats to change control of the House. And they're favored to do that next year just based on. how midterm elections tend to go historically and Trump's popularity, the shape of the economy, and so on, although, of course, that election is more than a year away and a lot can happen in that amount of time. So the idea is to make it likelier that Republicans can retain control of the House by redrawing the maps in a very big state that is very favorable to them and where Trump improved on his performance in 2024 and particularly in a lot of the heavily Latino districts on the border. So the efforts underway, the Democrats have stalled it for now by leaving the

state and denying the Republican majority a quorum. But both sides are talking as if they expect these maps to eventually pass and despite these delaying tactics. Andrew, what's interesting is that Democrats in the states where they have control, of course, are talking about reworking their district lines, gerrymandering those. And I think Trump will say California, for instance, already has gerrymandered districts. And so where, and then lots of writing about whether or not the Democrats should go ahead with that. And even if they can, because they have new rules that make it harder. So where does this leave the Democrats in all of this in states like California? Yeah, gerrymandering is such a weird sort of idiosyncratic thing that Americans do where everybody kind of agrees it's a little bit unsavory, but everybody has done it for a very long time. And it's kind of like enshrined as part of the political process, right? I mean, it's in the rules that this is how you make these districts. At that said, you know, over the last decade or so, Democrats in particular have tried in some of these states to push for taking some of the power of redistricting out of the hands of the legislatures, putting it in the hands of independent commissions and things like that. And sort of there's this perverse sense in which they have almost kind of tied their hands behind their back in one way or another. Either they are in states where they are already relatively heavily gerrymandered and there's not that much more blood you can squeeze out of a stone or there are these places where they themselves in sort of the name of good government's governance have created some of these logistical headaches for themselves going forward where they they are not able to respond with as much as agility as as Republicans are in Texas despite the delaying tactics of Democrats down. there. That said, there is, there are a lot of calls on, on the left right now, among Democrats right now to fight fire with fire, to try to, you know, whatever, whatever new gerrymandering can happen ought to happen. It's very, very different than kind of the energy that you were

seeing again, just a few years ago from, from, I would say, the majority of Democrats in the discourse. All of this assumes is that people know who's going to vote for whom in the next election, right? David, and is there any chance that might change, you know, looking at his Trump's approval ratings, they are, I think, to some people, surprisingly high still. So, I mean, is it possible to gerrymander in the way that they have in the past? You know, it's certainly possible to make some changes and to get some of the districts, especially in these states like Texas, that are fairly decided. I think it is hard to predict exactly what a midterm electorate will look like.

Trump's approval is low, but has been fairly enduring. We know that he has reworked the electorate, but we also know that the kinds of people who vote in mid-term elections tend to be different from the ones who vote in the presidential elections. You know, consistently, Trump has managed to turn out a lot of his supporters in the presidential elections. He's now that's successful in mid-term elections. So that does, you know, that does help Democrats in a national sense. But on a state level, I think there is juice to be squeezed. I want to talk a little bit about Trump and the world leaders he's meeting with over the next couple of days. He just posted on truth social. We'll be speaking to European leaders in a short while.

they are great people who want to see a deal done, also expected to be talking to Ukraine's president today and then that meeting with Putin in Alaska on Friday. Molly, what are you watching for in all of this? Well, I think we're all very eager to hear what Trump takes away from this emergency summit with the European leaders this morning. You know, they've sort of convened this effort to try to influence him ahead of his meeting with Putin and Alaska. Alaska at the end of the week, because there is a sense that he has sort of blown hot and cold on this issue and that while he hasn't given away the store to Putin as some feared, he has certainly given mixed signals and, you know, subjected Vladimir Zelensky

to that spectacle in the Oval Office earlier this year and before shifting and seeming more harsh on Putin in recent months. So we'll see what Trump takes away from that conversation, but I think it will be very important as an indicator of how he plans to approach the discussion with Putin and whether any progress can be made there. David, this meeting with Putin, of course, is happening without Ukraine's president. And when they're talking land swapping and deals, people are one. wondering how that conversation can go ahead. What is your take on what is expected to be achieved on Friday?

You know, you see the White House kind of trying to lower expectations for any kind of deal. And I think it's already, you know, we've already moved the goalposts a lot. Initially, Trump set this deadline by which he wanted Putin to withdraw. And the war, now he's allowed him a summit on American soil. Now he's not expecting a deal. It's unclear what Ukraine's role in this is. So, you know, it feels like a sort of place where he tried to make a splash. announcement and has been unable to deliver on it. And so I don't necessarily have a whole lot of

expectations for anything solid coming out of this. But it does seem like Putin has successfully managed to get some extra time on the clock. Andrew, do you agree? Nothing substantial coming out a Friday? Yeah, I mean, that's what we're all waiting to see. I think that the strange thing, watching all this unfold over the last few months has been sort of contrasting the way that Europe tended to deal with Trump during his first term, where they sort of approached him as a, as a, as a liberal leader sort of among equal liberal leaders and kind of got on his nerves by doing that a lot of the time. That's now kind of been supplanted by, as we saw at the NATO summit earlier this year, these sort of European leaders realizing that, okay, the way we need to deal with Trump

is by sort of falling all over ourselves in flattery. And that has seemed to get him sort of according to his own way of looking at the world back somewhat more on side in terms of seeing himself as an ally to European leaders, and by extension, an ally to Ukraine. And so, you know, that's all, that's all to the good. At the same time, Trump continues to make noises, the sort of bizarre sort of sideshow claims about how the, you know, Zelensky should never have allowed the war in Ukraine to start, you know, that kind of laying the fault for his country being invaded at the door of Ukraine. And so, and so, you know, I think Trump's going to go in there and go with his gut, and like we've seen time and time again,

nobody really knows the way that's going to shake out in the moment. David, how much access, media access will you have to what plays out in Alaska? Is there going to be one of these meetings where they're sitting down together and then they have a conversation in front of cameras? I think we'll get some of that. Trump doesn't do anything that is not for publicity. And I think Putin also definitely wants the photo op. He wants the picture of himself with Trump on American soil.

So there's a shared interest there, and I'm sure we'll get some, but probably not the really juicy stuff. Molly, what else? We've talked about a lot. I know there's so much more we could be looking at. But are you keeping an eye on anything else in the next couple of weeks? Well, it's never a dull moment here in Trump's Washington. I think, you know, the Congress has been on hiatus for the month of August, and they're going to have a lot on their plate when they return. So we've all been watching these contentious.

just meetings that lawmakers have been having back in their districts. A lot of angry people out there who have been yelling at Republicans and Democrats alike. So when Congress gets back, we'll see what they get up to. Andrew, last word to you then. What are you looking for in the last couple of weeks? We only have about the next couple of weeks, a couple of 20 seconds left here. I'm excited to find out whether we are still going to get a new monthly economic data and job reports in the future. Trump's a nominee to lead the Bureau of Labor Statistics has suggested. Maybe that's a relic of the past when he gets in there and we might have to move to quarterly numbers. So we'll see how all that goes. Okay. Thank you very much for this to the three

of you. I appreciate it. Thank you. Molly Ball is the Wall Street Journal's senior political correspondent in Washington, D.C. Andrew Egger is a White House correspondent for the news website, The Bullwark, and David A. Graham is a staff writer for the Atlantic Magazine. You've been listening to the current podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon. For more CBC podcasts, go to cBC.ca slash podcasts.