DC Mayor Takes a 'Measured' Approach to Trump's Crackdown

On Monday, DC Mayor Muriel Bowser balked at President Trump's plan to take over her city's Metropolitan Police Department and call in the National Guard, calling it an unproductive move not reflective of DC's decreasing crime stats. By the next day, there was a "shift" in Bowser's attitude, reports the AP. "What I'm focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have," Bowser said at a Tuesday presser with Attorney General Pam Bondi, per NBC News, which takes a closer look at the balancing act that the notoriously stoic Bowser is now being forced to partake in while dealing with the president.

"How we got here or what we think about the circumstances—right now we have more police, and we want to make sure we use them," she added, per the AP. Later that evening, in a teleconference with DC community leaders, Bowser did slam Trump's move in the city by calling it an "authoritarian push," following up comments from the previous day in which she deemed it "unsettling and unprecedented," reports CNN. However, as NBC notes, the Democratic mayor has still had a "far more measured" reaction than other local and national Dems to Trump's stunts, and has tried when possible to find common ground on working with Trump.

Bowser has had other instances of playing nice with the president—she visited him at Mar-a-Lago after he won the November election, agreed to have the city remove "Black Lives Matter" lettering from the street in front of the White House she placed there during his first term—in the name of practicality, as she believes DC has "bigger fish to fry," per CNN. But during Trump's first spin in the Oval Office, Bowser spent much of it "openly sparring" with him. Political analyst Tom Sherwood tells the outlet he believes Bowser is simply being strategic now to help DC stay out of the line of fire. "I believe that the mayor has done all she can do to tend to the weather-vane attitude of President Trump," he notes. "The image from the president is that the district is a liberal, mostly Black city that doesn't care about fighting crime, and so that's left the mayor and the DC Council as prime targets for him."