Muriel Bowser Transcript — Oct. 8, 2025

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (00:00):

No city has been forced to confront the implications of the federal government’s efforts to overhaul the federal bureaucracy and to influence municipal operations on a scale like Washington, D.C. Allegion of federal workers, thousands of them D.C. residents have been purged from the government roles. While federal authorities have become a regular presence on city streets, as we’ve heard in the previous session, mayor Muriel Bowser has been on the front lines, but the administration is now expanding to cities across the country. Mayor Bowser is the seventh elected mayor of Washington D.C. She has served her hometown in elected office since 2004 as Advisory neighborhood commissioner, a member of the D.C. Council and Mayor for the past 10 years. Last November, she became only the second person elected three times as mayor of Washington D.C. and she is the first African American woman to be elected to three, four year terms as the mayor of an American city. Please welcome Mayor Bowser. So thanks for joining us.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (01:21):

My pleasure.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (01:23):

It’s not like you’ve got nothing else to do, so we’re so happy that you’re able to spend some time with us. And just to outline the few rules that we have for the game, I’m going to have a chat with the mayor. We’ll cover a waterfront of issues hopefully, and then we will open it up to questions for local reporters from D.C. who are covering this event for your news organizations. The questions in the q and a period are reserved for the folks who are part of the fellowship, so thank you for joining us and we’ll get started.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (02:05):

Thank you.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (02:06):

So let’s talk about the relationship with the federal government. D.C.’s relationship with the federal government goes beyond proximity, and I wondered to know how you would describe that relationship now. Is it more forced marriage, a partnership of necessity, or you fill in the blank?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (02:32):

Well, I think you have to understand that D.C. is unique in the American political system. So it’s not a casual relationship as one that is outlined in the constitution that D.C. is not quite a state and not exactly a city. The mayor of D.C. is Mayor, county executive and governor all at once. D.C. takes care of itself, its residents pay taxes, go to war and have all the responsibilities of citizenship, but are not represented in the capital of the United States. And the Congress of the United States and D.C. residents don’t have full autonomy, meaning that the Congress of the United States has plenary authority over Washington, D.C. and the president of the United States by virtue of our home rule charter also has some prerogatives in D.C. that he doesn’t have in autonomous states. So that is the constitutional relationship of Washington D.C. with any president, with any White House and with any Congress.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (03:46):

How would you describe the temperature of that relationship at the moment?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (03:50):

I’m don’t exactly know what that means.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (03:55):

The tension, obviously there is tension between city and federal governments, whatever cities, but because of D.C.’s proximity to the Capitol, I wonder how you would describe it as we’re going through this uncertain period.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (04:10):

I mean, I think our relationship, regardless of who’s in power, is defined by proximity and vulnerability. Not just proximity, but vulnerability. And I think that’s always the case. I don’t wake up taking the temperature, I wake up with what I have to get done in a plan to get it done.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (04:33):

More than, we mentioned this at the outset of how many federal workers are now have either left the payroll, I think 150,000 left the payroll last week, 750,000 across the country. Not only here, but across the country are part of the furloughed workforce, many of them D.C. residents. Last week you launched an effort to try to keep folks here, keep the talent in D.C., but how worried are you about this uncertain economic period and what it means for the city?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (05:07):

Well, I think the shift in our economy caused by Doge first and foremost is probably the greatest threat to the city’s economic future. Even though we are weathering this and our economy has proven to be somewhat resilient, we know that that’s the biggest threat to the city. If we even think about last year and how we came into 2025, we were the fastest growing jurisdiction. Any state, any city in America, aaa bond rating, schools having the largest increase in population of any district in the region, test scores improving, number one, park system, violent crime at a 30-year low. So all of those things were moving, and then Doge happened and we suddenly became very concerned, not suddenly, but we were very concerned about what it means when your very stable work force is jolted and these are people, mid-career people, some late in career people, good pay, specific experience and expertise out of work.

(06:26):

We had whole agencies, like USAID, wiped out of people who have very specific transferable skills for sure, but had been engaged in very important work for the nation and the world for a long time. So we are very concerned about making sure that those families can find work and stay in their homes at their churches, in their neighborhoods because they don’t by and large want to leave this region. And this is not just a D.C. issue. In some respects, Maryland and Virginia are even more impacted than we are with the number of federal workers that they have in federal contractors.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (07:11):

You mentioned the DOGE actions as being the biggest threat at the moment, but you didn’t, well, you may have anticipated a shutdown, but what does that do to add that number on top of the folks who’ve already been released from the workforce?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (07:31):

Well, the shutdown is, and we have had shutdowns. Our operations are detached from the federal government operations. So there’s no impact on district operations yet. We would be impacted just like other states would be impacted if some programs that run out of money, we are real concerned about WIC and SNAP at the moment. We would become at some point concerned about people who work for us but are 100% federally funded. We would become concerned if we would be able to carry their pay if this is prolonged. In the last shutdown, the last prolonged shutdown, there was a law passed that ensured that people would get back pay. Now I understand that that’s being questioned, so that would become a concern if people didn’t get their money.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (08:33):

What kind of hit though are you feeling or have you felt yet in terms of tourism given D.C. is usually —

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (08:43):

We wouldn’t know that yet. We just wouldn’t know that yet. But you can kind of feel it. You can see that there are just fewer people in town and fewer people going to restaurants if the museums have to close. I think they were open through last week. Then people who had planned trips, planned vacations. This is a weekend where kids have long weekends. We get a lot of family travel and these long weekends, if the museums closed, then we would see the hotels and restaurants would have even greater hit. And we understand that there’s some disruption to air travel starting this weekend. So all of that is very disruptive.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (09:28):

D.C. is in the midst of a lawsuit against the administration related to the deployment of the Guard. And I wonder what goes through your, and you obviously are in the midst of it yourself now, but I wonder what goes through your mind as you see the images of the guard on the streets of Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, Memphis, and what are your concerns for the risk to local sovereignty going forward?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (10:00):

Well, my concern about the National Guard is that they’re not a law enforcement agency. They’re not an agency that should be used to police Americans. That’s not our understanding of their mission. The president D.C. doesn’t like the governors of the states that you mentioned. We don’t control our guard. The D.C. National Guard is basically misnamed. I say this a thousand times, it should be changed. It’s the President’s Guard, the president of the United States controls the D.C. National Guard. There was a bill in Congress after January 6th that didn’t move, should have moved as part of the January 6th package that would give the D.C. mayor control of the D.C. National Guard. And that should and must happen.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (10:49):

Is there a plan we heard in the last session about the importance of a plan for when the guard leaves? And I wonder what you’re hearing from the communities in terms of how they have handled the guard’s presence.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (11:08):

The guard is not what I hear about most from D.C. residents. People don’t want to see the military, I don’t think. Some people don’t mind it at all, I have to say that, but people are dead concerned about ICE and their tactics.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (11:27):

Right. And expand on that if you could.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (11:31):

I mean, that’s just a concern. We don’t, especially in this city. It was purported that ICE would be used to go after criminals, and that’s not what we see happening.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (11:43):

What do you see happening?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (11:45):

You know what we see happening?

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (11:47):

No, I’m just interested.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (11:49):

We see ICE going after any and everybody.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (11:52):

OK. There’s obviously concerns to local sovereignty related to federal presence in the city. How have you dealt with that, especially now, given what you see happening in other cities as well?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (12:15):

D.C. is not like other cities, and so I kind of start there. It’s hard to extrapolate anything in D.C. to someplace else. I was looking at one of the cities impacted, and I think I counted that they had a total of 12 representatives in Congress compared to our one delegate who doesn’t have a vote and we don’t have any representation in the Senate, and they have a governor that controls the Guard. So D.C. is not comparable to any other place. So looking at what’s happening there in those places and what’s happening here is not that instructive for us. And it may be somewhat instructive for them to look at D.C. I think one of the big things that other cities can do, especially that haven’t had this incursion yet, and that’s what I see with the other cities, is that they could look at D.C. and say, OK, this happened there. This is how we can prepare if there is the Guard, if there’s ICE because they can about those things in advance.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (13:27):

How often have you heard from your counterparts in your position, including the ones who are now sort of facing those —

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (13:37):

I’m very engaged in conversations with mayors all the time.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (13:41):

It’s not all adversarial and bad news. You’ve been able to forge some interesting alliances with the federal government. I’m thinking Senator Lee Comer in your work to secure control over the land that will bring the commanders back to D.C.. And I wonder if you could talk about how you are going about that, even though you have some of these issues related to the administration at the forefront. How are you forging these unlikely relationships to keep the economy supported?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (14:25):

Well, as I said, regardless of who’s in charge, we have a job to do so. When there are Democrats in charge in the Congress, you would be saying the same thing. You forged a relationship with this oversight chair to work on D.C. issues. I think the difference is for mayors, and I think mayors may be uniquely positioned to do this because in many ways the job of the mayor is a very practical one. It’s not an ideological one. How you pick up the trash, how you make sure schools are open, how you staff your police department, all of those things, they happen and they have to happen on a daily basis or somebody gets hurt or somebody doesn’t get a service. So the mayor’s job is a very practical one. And so speaking about James Comer, I met him because he became the oversight chair.

(15:31):

He was going to have a hearing on D.C.. I went in to talk with him and I said, look, I’m going to tell you this, these things about what you asked me about, but I’m also going to ask you for your help on these handful of things. And we worked on those handful of things including public safety, including the federal return to work and including how we secure RFK and every step of the way. Chairman Comer has done the things that he said he would do related to RFK, and we have a big shared priority that advanced,

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (16:07):

You mentioned that. And the investment is huge. It’s 2.7 billion by the Commanders, city’s throwing in a billion. And securing that property was obviously the biggest part of moving forward with that. That was done in December of 2024.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (16:29):

Yes, correct.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (16:29):

Do you think that agreement could have happened now?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (16:36):

Yes.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (16:37):

Why?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (16:38):

Because it is. It is a winner. I mean, it’s hard not to be for turning 180 acres of vacant land into productive use, and you have a great partner who’s ready to go. That’d be crazy.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (17:06):

You and the city have been subjects of fairly intense media scrutiny, which doesn’t say at all over the past 10 months. And given that this is a conference for journalists, I wondered this is your chance to evaluate that coverage and what did the press miss along the way?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (17:34):

Oh, gosh. Don’t get me started on that one.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (17:36):

Go ahead. The floor is yours.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (17:38):

In D.C. It is different. This is what I tell everybody who wants to come work for me. I don’t know where you would come from or what job you used to have when you come to work in Washington D.C. It’s different. And it’s different. We’re covered by the Washington Post, the Congress reads, our local news watches, our local press coverage, the President does. It’s different here. The level of scrutiny is different here. And I have had that type of scrutiny for the entire time that I’ve been in elective office. So it’s hard for me to kind of look back and say, they did this or they didn’t do that.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (18:18):

Well, let me ask it a different way. In the past 10 months, what do you think has not been covered that requires attention?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (18:30):

That’s hard for me to say. I would have to give that a lot more thought.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (18:43):

OK, yeah. Well, you have a little time to think while we open it up for questions. Again, as a microphone comes to you, tell us who you are, who you represent, and we’ll go from there.

Sean Keenan, Atlanta Civic Circle (19:00):

Thank you. Hey, mayor Bowser. Thank you for joining us. My name is Sean Keenan, I’m here from Atlanta. You mentioned you speak to other mayors all the time. I imagine you’re pretty familiar with Andre Dickens, and you may have heard of the drama surrounding our Public Safety training center, which has been nicknamed by Opponents Cop City. So I’ve been reporting on that for a few years for the New York Times. It’s still developing, but it’s a story that I think highlights the tensions between social justice activists and law enforcement and politicians. Governor Kemp even called on the National Guard a few years ago to tamp down on some of the excitement. And prosecutors have called activists, domestic terrorists. In some ways, this is apples to oranges with what’s happening in D.C., but I see some similarities. And I’m curious, did you learn anything talking with Mayor Dickens about the cop city drama that helped you understand how to navigate police citizen tensions? And can you reflect on how having federal troops has affected your resident’s relationship with the authorities? What do you think this period is doing to D.C. residents eagerness or willingness to engage in protest activity?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (20:14):

Well, let me start with your first question. I don’t know a lot about I that training center only what I picked up on the news, and I haven’t had any conversations with Georgia officials about it, but I do think it’s analogous to, I would say the police debate over the last five to six years. And that debate has, I think drastically and negatively impacted public safety in Washington D.C.. And the debate went something like this, we don’t need police. We need alternatives to police. We need to make the laws. We need to change the laws, and we need to change the laws away from enforcement of the law in favor of less accountability for people who break the law. And so that in my view, has helped the crime spike that we saw in 2023 and impacted the significant decrease in the number of people who want to be law enforcement in the number of people that we have as law enforcement in Washington D.C..

(21:37):

So I couldn’t draw any specific links or lessons from what’s happening about that training center, although constructing those types of facilities is always kind of difficult. Where are you cited how much money it costs? What else could you use the money for? I imagine that we would have that type of debate here about, and you do need those facilities. Actually we need a new one too, that would be for police and fire and law enforcement. But you sometimes have those debates about using dollars for those types of projects. Now the question of are we concerned about community trust? Absolutely. We’re concerned about community trust because in a public’s eye, anybody in a uniform is the same for some people. So our NPD, which we, our police department, which we work for 20 years to get them a great reputation, professional force, body-worn camera, police, accountability review board, all of those things we believed improved public safety because people were willing to call the police. That has been terribly disrupted by the presidential emergency, and I think it will have some tales, but we are going to work hard every day to make sure people are calling us. Now objectively, have people stopped calling the police? No. And actually the number of calls went up during that surge. I think they leveled off post emergency, but people are very definitely calling the police, calling 911.

(23:31):

I would have to go back and look at our permits and things of that nature to compare it. We did, I would say from Trump one on, we saw the number of First Amendment activities in this city skyrocket. Now we’re the nation’s capital, so people come here to protest. But we did see it take off during that time. I think that’s a great question for us to look back on how much the activity has changed. My sense is it hasn’t changed that much, but I would want to look at some of the permits and how we’re supporting them.

Kirstin Garriss (24:15):

Okay. Thank you, mayor, for being here today. Kirstin Garriss, independent creator, journalist based here in D.C. with a new Substack and TikTok. During the height of the president’s federal surge in D.C. residents, often immigrant community members were, we saw videos of people being pulled out of their car while they’re working or arrested while walking their kids to school by federal officers. How was your office working to address those moments of extreme police force, and is there any effort to hold those officers accountable? Additionally, given your role leading the safe and beautiful task force, have you raised those concerns in your meetings with the White House and when you’ve spoken to them recently?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (24:53):

Yes. I’m not leading the safe and beautiful task force that is a presidential task force. And we have, if you’re referring to what we have stood up in D.C. government, we as stood up. It’s kind of inside talk, but we call it an emergency operations center that coordinates our resources on the D.C. side and coordinates at the request that we have of the federal government or responses to the federal government. And as far as D.C. residents being able to make complaints, they can. We have a police complaints board, and obviously I mentioned already our concern hasn’t been the DOJ agencies. In fact, we work hand in hand with them all the time on federal task forces. And they have been very helpful. And with working with local police, our police and I call it the high level conspiratorial type crime where they can look at drug trafficking, look at gun trafficking, look at unfortunately, trafficking of human beings. And it’s frequently multi-state and sometimes multinational investigations that can lead to some high level investigations and prosecutions that definitely make D.C. safer. That is the best use of those resources. But they are also more familiar with D.C. and with working with local police. The non DOJ agencies that have been involved in the president’s task force and that linger are the problematic agencies. They’re not as familiar with our crime. And in the case of the Homeland Security agencies, they’re focused on immigration enforcement, which is not our focus.

Amir Khafagy, Documented (27:02):

Hi, good morning. Thank you for being here. My name is Amir Khafagy. I’m a reporter from New York City, Documented New York. In New York, we have concerns about the National Guard possibly coming and being deployed in our city. So I was wondering if you could illuminate for us a little bit about what coordination or conversations or what kind of communications you’ve had with the National Guard as well as ICE as they’ve been deployed here.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (27:28):

Well, the guard, and we make a distinction, and I know that there is, well, I won’t go backwards, but the D.C. guard is our guard that is controlled by the president of the United States, and then he has deployed out of State Guard. Both of the guard deployments are the subject of a lawsuit, the District Attorney General versus the Trump administration over the president’s ability to deploy out of State Guard without our request. So we think there is substantial legal question that has to be answered. That question is being asked in the other states as well. California had the first lawsuit. I think Portland is active now. Illinois may be active. And then we have the question as well. So there are two things there where the states have, how can the president commandeer their guard or bring in out-of-state guards without the presence of an emergency. So I think that’s the question. The second question is, and this is the one that I’m very concerned about, can the guard be used for policing?

(28:55):

And I think that the first decision that came out of California was yes. And so why should we be as Americans concerned about that? Obviously, you’ve all talked to me about the practical impacts on local autonomy and our local policing, but what if the president can tell them to stop an election? Now I’m talking about any president. What if the president could tell ’em to stop an election? So we have to be concerned about if the guard can be used for local, and we’re not talking about a riot or insurrection, that’s a different case. You can make the case for calling up the guard for that. But for local policing, I think that we’re all looking at where the courts come down on that.

(29:56):

Well, it is our guard, right? So I had the new commander of the guard come into my office so we can talk because when this is all over and it will be over, they’re going to be our guard and we’re going to have to work with them. And many people in the D.C. Guard are D.C. residents, and they have been focused on non-police, they know they can’t do law enforcement. So they’re doing some other things that if I was going to call up the guard or request the guard, they help us with crowd control or traffic management. They’ve been deployed a lot, beautification activities and things of that nature. So the answer to your question is yes, at a level, probably not the police chief, but in our deputy mayor’s apparatus, that’s the regular line of communication with the D.C. Guard for the out state guard. I believe most of them have been deputized to report up to the US Marshal, and I could have that wrong, but I believe that’s the reporting structure.

Sapna Bansil, The Baltimore Banner (31:05):

I’m Mayor Bowser, Sapna Bansil with The Baltimore Banner. You’ve talked a lot today about D.C.’s challenges with lack of autonomy and how that puts your city in a sort of vulnerable position with respect to the federal government. I think representative Jamie Raskin in our state has proposed something of a solution to that, which is I think what’s called retrocession, which is having D.C. be incorporated back into Maryland. I think he said he talked with you about that at one point. Maybe it was in passing. What’s your position on retrocession?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (31:39):

We are not Marylanders. We are Washingtonians. And that’s my position. And there is another solution that Representative Raskin also supports, and he has been a very strong advocate for D.C. and for D.C. statehood. And his constitutional expertise makes him even better championed because he knows that, and this is what a lot of people are. The Constitution prevents D.C. from becoming a state, and that’s just simply not true. The Constitution requires a federal district, it does not require, and it doesn’t stipulate how large the federal district has to be. And so we and the Constitution that we wrote for the 51st state, carve out a federal enclave that is the nation’s capital and everything else, all the other neighborhoods surrounding it. And the 700,000 of us who live in those neighborhoods and pay taxes will become residents of the 51st state. And I think if Representative Raskin, I say this frequently that I’m not sure Marylanders would want us in the end because you know what that would mean. That means that I could be the governor of Maryland and I don’t think they want somebody from Petworth or Shepherd Park or North Michigan Park to be the governor of Maryland. I mean, that’s just what I think.

Abbey McDonald, Salem Reporter (33:12):

Hi, I’m Abbey McDonald with Salem Reporter in Oregon. I cover homelessness over there. And President Trump’s administration wants to address homelessness by clearing encampments without notice, jailing people, forcing them into mental health treatment. It’s not humane or proven effective. My elected officials in law enforcement in Oregon are probably soon going to be pressured to take a more punitive approach to homelessness. So I’m wondering, how did the D.C. police department’s established approach to homeless residents differ from what the federal government asked of you, and where were you able to get concessions on that approach?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (33:50):

You have raised, I believe, the single hardest problem that I have confronted in government. And that is dealing with homeless encampments in homeless residents who have significant, significant challenges. And that I can say that in a city where we have invested so many millions of dollars in ending homelessness. So we have the resources and we have used the resources to end homelessness, and we still have too many people who are living on the street. We have other people who are not on the street but don’t have permanent housing too. And that’s a whole nother issue. So part of our approach has just been to build enough affordable housing and we’ve invested more per capita than any place in America in the last 10 years. We were able to produce 36,000 new units in less than five years. So we’ve done all of that. We’ve transformed our homeless system, especially for families where we’ve been able to drive down family homelessness and we’re starting on our single system.

(35:08):

Are we building better, more dignified, more humane shelter for people so that they will come inside? But then you have people, I would say many of whom are challenged to make good decisions for themselves, whether it is mental illness or substance misuse. And so dealing with that group of people who are saying, I don’t want to go inside even though there’s a place for them inside, is what I call one of the most difficult challenges post pandemic. And during the pandemic, there was a move not to clear encampments, and we saw in our city the number of encampments go up, and that was a public health issue. And so we went with it, but that also had tails. So we had more people in tents than we had ever seen in D.C. before because of our size. It even looked like there were more than there actually were.

(36:19):

So getting people inside has been one of the most difficult things. We’ve developed a protocol that we think is fair that we think is humane, but it is respectful of the unhoused resident, but also of the communities who want to be safe and who want to be able to use parks and want to be able to walk down sidewalks. And so we have created a balance. We are in the federal government’s case because a lot of these encampments, you probably know this, but a lot of the park space in D.C. is federal, not local. And so we have worked with the park service on enforcing their no encampments on federal space. And we also are enforcing no encampments throughout the district. We do try to go through a pretty robust protocol so that we’re talking to our residents and trying to get them to come in.

(37:25):

We’ve had some success. We’ve had some more success frankly, with the idea that people, they don’t want to engage unknown force. They want to work with the outreach workers that they’re used to and accustomed to. And so we are stepping up our process now. I think a difference between us and a lot of the western cities is that we have enough shelter for the most part, and we’re leaning into a concept called bridge housing where an unhoused person in an encampment is more likely to go into this bridge housing than into a shelter. So we are continuing to add ways to get people to come inside.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (38:18):

Can I add just a question to that? Does the administration’s focus on ridding the city of homelessness undermine your efforts? Obviously you’ve outlined a number of things that the city has done to help homelessness.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (38:39):

Well, let me put it this way. If our traditional approach wasn’t working and their approach won’t work, locking people up or it won’t work. So I think that the kind of push pull of attention and resources is what will work. So I won’t say that it’s undermining because I do think we’ve been able to moderate the instinct, their instinct

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (39:13):

Right here. Yeah, right in front.

Kamal Morgan, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (39:15):

Hi, my name is Kamal Morgan. I’m a racial equity reporter for the Fort Worth Star Telegram. I know we’ve been just talking about procedures and talking with the National Guard, but I’m really focused about the people and the ones who we most affected usually also through law enforcement is Black residents, especially communities of color. And I’m really interested to know how have you been able to speak with residents, your constituents, about making their community safer even as National Guard has come through? And even though you have said that there’s still talks in terms of can they actually police in these communities? I think that is the biggest fear of what is going to happen as National Guard is through these communities, are talking to people. Because since I’ve been here the last 24 hours, I’ve seen maybe even more guns. And I have seen it Texas in two years. And I’m really interested to know where on the streets I find hard to believe when I’m walk on the streets. I’ve only been here for 24 hours. I’ve seen more just guns in terms of just National Guard, not just regular citizens. So I’m just really interested, how can you make sure in terms of talking with these leaders here, the Black leaders, the Hispanic leaders, everybody here to make sure that they are still going to be safe even as they see more troops, more people here, FEI here, how do you make sure that they are going to still feel safe?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (40:48):

Well, I don’t think that we want out of state, we don’t want out-state guard here. We don’t want people to be accustomed to long guns or military policing them. So I’m not telling them to ever think that that is normal. That’s not our message. But the National Guard I know captures a lot of attention. It is it the immigration enforcement that has been the most destructive here. It really is. And in terms of safety, I understand your question to mean ‘people see this, so that makes them feel unsafe.’ And I think that the only way that our neighbors are, I think neighbors know that the military shouldn’t be in their neighborhood policing them in regular capacity, but our neighbors also putting that to the side want safer neighborhoods. And so part of our discussion is making sure that we have the police, the local police, to have the type of presence in neighborhoods that need more presence. And those are parallel discussions, but they kind of bump up against each other a little bit. Because what I see and I don’t know about other places is that the National Guard is being used as presence. And that somebody asked me a question from New York. New York put the National Guard on the subway for presence.

Jeanette DeDios, KUNM (42:57):

Over here. Hi, my name’s Jeanette Dios. I am a government reporter for radio station in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And I had a question because last week we held a special session and our leaders directly responded to the federal cut. So the big beautiful bill and actually funded and passed efforts to fund premium healthcare tax credits, rural healthcare and SNAP funds. And I was curious to know here in D.C. how you are going to approach that and alternative methods to that as well.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (43:30):

It will be very difficult. I don’t know of any local jurisdiction who can locally replace those cuts is impossible. And I think one of our biggest concerns will be around healthcare. And if the is my great hope that they come back to the table on the healthcare and on Medicaid because that will impact us on the food security issues. They need to come back to the table on that. And I got to think that they’re going to, because it affects everybody, Democrats, republicans, urban, rural, it affects Americans and they will be detrimentally impacted. We will have to address the bill however in our next budget because while it also would have the effect of decreasing local revenues coming in, and we have to decide as a city, do we pass on the federal tax treatment to the local tax treatment because if we do, it will affect the amount of revenue that we have coming in as a city.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (44:45):

Right over here, mayor.

Lauren Gibbons, Bridge Michigan (44:47):

Hi there. My name’s Lauren Gibbons. I’m a reporter with Bridge Michigan. Thanks for making the time today. In Michigan, there’s a lot of local governments who are concerned about major cuts to federal support for community violence intervention and other DOJ efforts to reduce crime and communities at the same time. The city of Detroit. There has been talk of potential National Guard activity there. It hasn’t happened yet, but I am curious from your perspective as a local official, as this conversation about what resources can be used to help reduce violent crime. What would be helpful to you absent this National Guard presence? What supports from the federal government do you see as being useful in combating violent crime?

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (45:34):

I think that the question of community violence interruption has been one that we’ve been pretty heavily invested in since 2018. And we believe in it. We think there are some things that have to be done to make it easier to understand the impact. And we are working internally in our system to do that. But all of the federal support and ARPA onward allowed us to ramp up our community violence intervention programs and as APA funds go away, that we have to make up for that locally. So we have had a hit on those dollars and we do think they are important, and it is a good use of federal dollars.

(46:25):

They are cutting some of the homeland security dollars that support technology tools that impact law enforcement from drones to license readers, all of those things, all of the technology investments make a difference. We think that normalizing this ICE recruitment and helping with recruitment for local PDs would be helpful. For example, in D.C. part of the reason we see our numbers of officers going down is because the federal government and their policing agencies, the recruitment and signing bonuses have gone up. So the competition for fewer and fewer people interested in law enforcement is having an impact on us. So I think having some investment in recruitment and retention of local law enforcement is also important.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (47:30):

Right over here, mayor.

Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail (47:32):

Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail in West Virginia. In August, our West Virginia’s governor, Patrick Morrissey approved 300 to 400 West Virginia National Guard personnel for deployment to Washington at the time. He said that in a statement, West Virginia is proud to stand with President Trump in his effort to restore pride and beauty to our nation’s capital. Our adjuvant general, major general Jim Seward said that we stand ready to support our partners in the national capital region and contribute to the collective effort of making our nation’s capital a clean and safe environment. I just wanted to get your thoughts on Republican governors being eager to assist in deployment of their state National Guard personnel to Washington and to the implications in this case, West Virginia’s leaders, that Washington needs pride and beauty to be restored and that the capitol needs to be made a clean and safe environment.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (48:52):

I think that’s a question for West Virginians. Why should your people come to Washington when you have your own issues in West Virginia? That to me is a question you should be writing about for them. Who do they report to? West Virginia, I believe, requires its National Guard to report to the governor of West Virginia. How are they being paid? When can they come home? Those are questions for West Virginians. Now, if the answer is they want to curry favor with the president, that’s also a question for West Virginians.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (49:33):

We have one time for one more.

Rhyma Castillo, San Antonio Express News (49:35):

Hi, my name is Rhyma Castillo and I’m a reporter with the San Antonio Express News in Texas. So throughout my reporting for this publication, I have seen a pattern of local and state officials calling for action from the federal government, specifically targeting people that they see on social media posts that have gone viral, governor Abbott or other local officials calling for the termination of certain employees based on their sexual orientation, their gender identity. And I wanted to ask what that pattern sort of signifies for the relationship between state and federal governments. If our officials are able to use these social media platforms to, in a certain sense, target certain demographics and put a spotlight on those individuals and what that pattern means on a national level, how these elected officials are using social media to bring federal attention to local issues. And could

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (51:08):

You give me an example? I’m not sure if follow your question, what’s an example of what you mean?

Rhyma Castillo, San Antonio Express News:

Yeah. So a couple of months ago, a local official, a city council member called attention to an educator in a certain district calling for his termination based on the fact that he identified as trans and that this certain demographic of person shouldn’t be involved in the education system simply based on their gender identity. And that caught the attention of a state official who then called on the attention of federal authorities and state authorities to essentially terminate this person.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (52:04):

Yeah, I think you’re raising just a huge issue of our time and how we’re going to respect and protect the human rights of our residents. And I think that, unfortunately, sounds like it varies from city to city or county to county in Texas. We are proud of our human rights laws in the District and how they protect people from discrimination. What you described is wrong on so many levels, but we recognize that the advent of social media and how it’s being used is so ubiquitous that I’m not surprised by that. But I think that the defense is having a strong law on the books where it doesn’t matter what that city counselor said because that public employee is protected by the law.

Kevin Johnson, National Press Foundation (53:06):

Well, with that, I’m sorry again to call an end to another great session. I want to thank the mayor for covering the waterfront of issues here for us today. So please thank the mayor on our behalf.

Muriel Bowser, Washington D.C. mayor (53:22):

Thank you.

###