D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) is questioning the legality of deploying the National Guard to cities across the country, and objecting to an effort that President Trump has described as part of a crackdown on crime.
“I don’t think it’s legal, let me start there, for the National Guard to police Americans on American soil,” Bowser said Wednesday when asked at the Fortune Most Powerful Women conference in Washington about not supporting “the use of the National Guard for public safety.”
“The mission and the way we use the National Guard – unlike most states where a governor can call out his National Guard or the chief of his National Guard – in DC, our DC National Guard reports to the President,” the mayor said.
“Even though I can request the National Guard, they are completely federally run. And so DC is a little different than other places for the National Guard,” she said.
“We use the Guard to respond to emergencies. We use the Guard to respond to large-scale events. We don’t use the Guard or police to enforce our local laws,” Bowser said.
Trump issued An executive order in August that declared a crime emergency in the nation’s capital and activated the National Guard. he has since deployed soldier In many other Democratic-led cities.
Earlier this month, a federal appeals court partially restored Trump had control over the National Guard in Chicago and throughout Illinois, but he prevented them from deploying troops there.
On Wednesday, Bowser said Washingtonians as well as people across the country should be concerned about what the deployment means “for our democracy.”
“We should all be concerned about the military being used because it’s a slippery slope,” he said.
“You use it for crowd control one day, or for attendance the next day — using it in other ways is not a quantum leap that could interfere with the nature of American democracy,” Bowser said.
Bowser also discussed the push for D.C. statehood, saying, “There are 700,000 Americans who don’t have a voice in Congress, and that voice could impact a larger national agenda.”
“Now it’s taken for granted that we’ll have two Democratic senators — that’s probably true — but maybe not. And having those two more voices in the Senate could make a difference in our approach to war and peace in the world, who sits on the Supreme Court, who is the director or secretary of this or that agency,” he said.
Asked if this was an issue she was “actively advocating” in her conversation with Trump, Bowser said in response to audience applause, “I’m actively trying to keep him out of our affairs.”
