Today’s notice: What comes next for D.C. and the cities watching the situation there closely. The politics of all this are emerging, and they’re surprising. Breaking the Merit Systems Protection Board. And: You truly gotta hand it to the Republicans still hosting in-person town halls.
THE LATEST
Uncharted territory: “This is a situation without standard operating procedures,” a D.C. official who works in public safety told NOTUS’ John T. Seward of Donald Trump’s historic move to federalize the District’s police force and activate the National Guard to combat local crime and homelessness.
What changes? At a press conference Monday, Mayor Muriel Bowser suggested the Metropolitan Police Department would operate as it has. “Nothing about our organizational chart has changed,” she said. One big change, of course, is that the org chart will now lead to AG Pam Bondi. What that means for day-to-day policing is a huge question mark.
Trump’s vision for MPD: “They fight back until you knock the hell out of them, because it’s the only language they understand,” he said of how police would respond in the District.
How long does this go? The White House told NOTUS this is “expected to last 30 days,” but even before Monday Trump had surged federal law enforcement into the city — and during yesterday’s presser suggested he could call in the military.
The legal question: Trump’s military deployment in Los Angeles is coming under legal scrutiny just as the White House spools up the D.C. effort. The DOJ is arguing the deployment of Marines and National Guard forces to back up ICE did not violate posse comitatus, but NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery reports that a federal judge sure has a lot of questions about it.
Open Tabs: Trump Hits Pause on Chinese Tariffs Once Again (NOTUS); UN condemns targeted Israeli attack that killed five journalists (BBC); Trump Names His Pick to Lead Embattled BLS (NOTUS); Ford hits the pedal on EV production (AP); Trump says Ukraine, Russia will have to swap some land for peace (Reuters)
From the Hill
What Trump told Congress: In order to maintain control of D.C.’s police for more than 48 hours (and up to 30 days), Trump is legally required to notify the congressional committees with purview over the city.
The letter: “The District of Columbia is facing a crisis of violent crime,” Trump wrote to Rep. Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on Oversight, in a letter obtained by NOTUS’ Oriana González. “I have determined that special conditions of an emergency nature exist that require the use of the Metropolitan Police Department … for Federal purposes.”
The police’s duties would be “maintaining law and order in the Nation’s seat of Government; protecting Federal buildings, national monuments, and other Federal property; and ensuring conditions necessary for the orderly functioning of the Federal Government.”
From the states
Blue cities are confused. If dropping crime rates like D.C. has aren’t enough to keep Trump from meddling, then what is? This “feels like another attempt for Donald Trump to just threaten people that don’t agree with his ideology,” NYC council member Keith Powers told NOTUS’ Shifra Dayak and Emily Kennard.
Why Kansas City’s mayor feels safer: “They don’t really care about scaring Missourians or Kansans, because they’re already voting [his] way, at least the majority,” Quinton Lucas told Shifra and Emily. He noted that other Democratic-run cities in red states didn’t get an explicit shout out from the president Monday like New York (and others) did.
THE BIG ONE
How does this play out politically? At its core, the White House’s decision to federalize D.C.’s police is a classic red meat buffet for the culture war set — a.k.a the kind of thing that has put Democrats on their heels since November.
Republicans nationally picked it up: Glenn Youngkin said it was an issue in the Virginia gubernatorial race. The NRSC posted a collage of GOP senators praising the move. The NRCC posted three bull’s-eye emoji over a video of Trump’s press conference aside about cash bail.
“If controlling crime and maintaining law and order is beyond the capacity of local officials, then it’s smart politics for members of Congress and congressional candidates to call for the feds to step in,” Republican strategist Matt Gorman told NOTUS’ Alex Roarty.
Democrats are not rushing in to polish their tough-on-crime bona fides as one might expect, though. “Get lost,” Hakeem Jeffries posted at Trump.
“You can’t let Trump say the dumb shit and hope people know it’s dumb,” one Democratic operative said. “If it’s bad, just fucking say it.”
A message test: “This just shows people that he’s focused on something else, not them,” a Democratic strategist texted. “The voters he’s losing ground with aren’t waking up in the morning worried about crime waves in D.C., they’re worried about the costs of coffee and crayons in their community.”
Where Democrats are coming from: Perhaps a bet that Trump is overreaching. Democrats are extremely unpopular, but national polling isn’t backing Trump’s moves up, either. His budget law is not improving his polling on governing, and his approach to immigration in Los Angeles and other places helped contribute to his declining numbers on even that signature issue.
NEW ON NOTUS
A CBO analysis Republicans will hate: New estimates find Trump’s budget law will result in 10 million people losing their health insurance by 2034, with more than 1 million of those losses coming next year. Household incomes for the poorest Americans are estimated to drop by 3.1% by then, while the wealthiest Americans are estimated to see a 2.7% increase in income.
Shutdown of the Merit Systems Protection Board: “This is another example of the administration wantonly breaking stuff,” Michael Gordon, a DOJ lawyer fired by the administration trying to challenge his termination via the MSPB, told NOTUS’ Jose Pagliery.
How Republican town halls are going: “Will the name LaMalfa be mentioned in the same sentence as Goebbels, Mengele and Trump?” a voter in Chico, California, asked yesterday.
“I predict not,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa, the town hall’s host, replied dryly. NOTUS’ Em Luetkemeyer reports on the rest of the scene.
NOT US
- NYC Is the Nation’s Capital of Immigration Courthouse Arrests, New Data Analysis Shows, by Haidee Chu and Gwynne Hogan for The City
- The Long, Strange Trip of Rick Perry, by Robert Draper for The New York Times
- Inflation Up or Down? What About Jobs? The Agency That Should Know Is on the Rocks, by Matt Grossman, Brian Schwartz and Rachel Louise Ensign
- New chatbot on Trump’s Truth Social platform keeps contradicting him, by Drew Harwell for The Washington Post
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