The political – and historical context – of Trump’s DC repression: from the political bureau

Welcome to the online version of Political officeAn evening newsletter that brings you the latest report and analysis of the NBC News Policy team from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign campaign.

In today’s edition, Jonathan Allen breaks down President Donald Trump’s decision to put DC police under federal control. In addition, Bridget Bowman speaks with a New Yorker who voted for Trump and Zohran Mamdani.

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– Adam Wollner

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The political – and historical context – of Trump’s DC repression

Jonathan Allen analysis

Donald Trump is not the first president at Deploy federal troops and agents In the name of the safeguard of the national capital, but it was particularly selective on what represents a threat to peace. And this time, he can take advantage of it politically.

In the summer of 2020, Trump amassed a strongly armed force on Lafayette’s square, a few steps from the White House and sparked her on peaceful demonstrators demonstrating against uninformed police violence.

Several months later, he chose not to mobilize the National Guard of DC or the thousands of federal agents for applying the law under his command to defend the Capitol of his supporters. They attacked police officers, broke into the Capitol, degraded from goods and sought politicians to harm.

In 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson sent troops to protect the Capitol during the riots following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr., but Trump did not take such defensive measures against Magb Mob in 2021.

Now, restored to the presidency and having granted leniency to the rioters of January 6, he says that he wants to save Washington from his own residents – using officers of an alphabet soup of federal agencies and the National Guard of DC to patrol the streets. Trump also federally has metropolitan police, which he can do for 30 days without approval from the congress.

By naming the best Washington cop himself, he promised to clean up a city which he described as having been “overwhelmed” by “bloodthirsty criminals”. The Attorney General Pam Bondi went further, promising that “DC crime ends today”.

This will obviously not happen. But two things can be true at the same time: DC residents are the victims of Too many violent crimes, And The rate of these violent crimes has dropped visibly. This should allow Trump to keep this promise more easily – he can just take credit for What was already in motion – than those who failed: the end of inflation and wars in Ukraine and Gaza, among others.

For longtime Washingtonians, the idea that the city has become a kind of dystopian criminal nightmare ignores history. In the late 80s and early 1990s, the city was invaded by drug lords – The mayor at the time was arrested after being surprised to smoke crack – and he was known as the capital of the murder of the world. At the 1991 summit, there were more than 500 homicides in the district, and Outdoor drug markets prosperous.

The most important statistics to assess what residents think of the city is the Constant population increase Over the past 25 years. Meanwhile, the city gross domestic product Almost quadrupled and the districts that had been left for the dead were revitalized in all Washington.

These basic trend lines should continue, with or without the deployment of Trump. In the meantime, he again described himself as a supporter of “Law and Order” – as long as he serves his political ends – which could allow him to position himself to attribute a credit to a relatively safe and prosperous city, and let the Democrats fight on the quantity of fight against crime.

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Meet the voter who supported Trump and Zohran Mamdani

By Bridget Bowman

To better understand how two candidates such as they are ideologically opposed as President Donald Trump and the New York town hall candidate, Zohran Mamdani, could gain importance, just ask Ray. He voted for both.

“They are not afraid to move away from who they are as a person,” said the 34 -year -old New York who works in finance. (Ray refused to share his surname for the sake that he could face his political opinions.)

I spoke for the first time with Ray in January When we contacted some of the swing voters who propelled Trump to victory last year. I reminded him recently to ask him how he thought that the Trump administration was going so far. Radius is not happyBut he admitted that he expected him to expect Trump to shake things up. It was then that he mentioned that he had also voted for Mamdani in the democratic primary of this year for the mayor of New York.

“Like Trump, I do not agree with all his opinions,” said Ray about Mamdani, a self -proclaimed democratic socialist. “But he makes the effort to go out and talk to people and reach out to people and try to do things that are better for the working class.”

Son of Asian immigrants, Ray has not always been attentive to politics. He signed up as a democrat to have his say in the policy of Deep Blue City and because the party supported the policies from which he benefited when he was a child, such as public education, school lunches and extracurricular programs.

Ray voted for Joe Biden in 2020, looking for a return to normality in the middle of the cocovated pandemic. After Biden’s elections, Ray’s policy began to move when he helped his mother, an owner, to navigate the policies of the pandemic era on expulsions and rent gels, in particular by pursuing a prohibition order against a tenant who pulled a knife when she tried to perceive the rent. Ray also recalled a pivotal moment during a trip to Washington, DC, when demonstrators launched a racial insult and his wife now.

“When I voted for Biden, it was the expectation that things will come back to normal,” said Ray, adding later: “The problem is that we have never really obtained normality.”

So he voted for Trump in 2024, the first time he had supported a republican.

Quick advance until June this year, and Ray has seen a video on Mamdani’s social networks slamming former governor Andrew Cuomo During a primary debate by the mayor. Mamdani stressed Cuomo’s resignation as governor in 2021 in the midst of allegations of sexual harassment, which Cuomo denied.

“Mamdani, really, he was not ashamed to talk about it. He was no shame for whom he was. And he was not ashamed of his own policies and his own thoughts and what would be best for the city,” said Ray.

“These are not the Republicans or Democrats in my mind,” said Ray, adding that he was attracted to a candidate “who is honest, who is authentic, and someone who has the advantages of the little person in mind.”

“I think that it is important, and I think that is what is missing in politics these days,” he said.

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It’s all of the political bureau for the moment. Today’s newsletter was compiled by Adam Wollner and Bridget Bowman.

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