President Donald Trump has not been shy about touting the success of his federal crime-fighting takeover of Washington, D.C., though it appears that the initiative is poised for something of a transition in the coming days.
As Politico reports, the GOP-led U.S. House of Representatives does not plan to entertain a vote to extend Trump’s initiative before it is set to expire next week.
News that the lower chamber would permit the takeover to lapse was effectively confirmed by House Speaker Mike Johnson on Thursday.
Departing the House floor, Johnson was asked about the status of the temporary arrangement, and he asserted that assurances from D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser that she was prepared to coordinate with federal law enforcement authorities indefinitely resolved some of the issues that might have prompted an extension.
An absence of action from the House will ensure that the 30-day emergency order initiated by Trump last month will expire on Sept. 10.
Though Bowser last week publicly called for the police takeover to end, and she has continued to lament the deployment of National Guard forces and ICE agents within the District, her resistance to federal assistance has not been universal in nature.
Indeed, Bowser has been welcoming of an infusion of FBI agents and U.S. Park Police, and though she clearly stated her belief that “We don’t need a presidential emergency,” she said the District has “a framework to request or use federal resources in our city.”
Despite her apparent ambivalence about Trump’s focus on D.C., Bowser last week admitted that the law enforcement surge has had a positive impact, as NBC News noted.
“We greatly appreciate the surge of officers that enhance what MPD has been able to do in this city,” Bowser said.
The mayor further pointed to the fact that carjackings, which have been an often-deadly scourge across the nation’s capital in recent years, had seen an 87% year-over-year drop in just the 20-day period since the takeover began.
“We know that when carjackings go down, when use of guns goes down, when homicide or robbery go down, neighborhoods feel safer and are safer, so this surge has been important to us,” Bowser declared.
Even so, Bowser was met with criticism from members of the D.C. City Council, some of whom decried any outward expression of cooperation with the Trump administration, with at-large member Robert White Jr. saying, “We should not, as the District of Columbia, be giving people the impression that this is a good thing, that we are OK with it, that it is helping the city. It is not doing any of those things.”
For his part, Trump views the results of his initiative as wholly positive, contending that since the takeover, residents and visitors to the District now feel safe and business is booming, saying, “We have no crime. You’re not going to be shot.”
With violent crime surging in other Democrat-led cities across the nation, the only question for the president now is which major metropolis deserves to be next on the list for his federally-aided clean-up program.
