Politics
Trump is shocking official Washington. Will he leave his mark on the District too?
Donald Trump isn’t just looking to remake the federal government. He has his sights set on the city of Washington, too.
In his first few weeks in office, the president has moved to drastically alter the fabric of the nation’s capital.
He ordered thousands of Washington-area federal workers to return to the office — some of whom his administration is moving to lay off. He injected himself and his allies onto the board of the John F. Kennedy Center to recast “woke” performing art culture. And the city’s mayor said she has been briefed on a pending executive order on topics like public safety and homeless encampments in the city.
The flurry of actions drives home that Trump has a dark view of his adopted, part-time home — possibly influenced by the fact that more than 90 percent of its residents supported his opponent in the 2024 election. He called the District a city of “filth” and “decay,” an insult reminiscent of ones he has hurled at other major cities he has feuded with like Baltimore or New York.
Trump has cast his departure from Washington in 2021 as a pivot point for the city. He rarely returned to Washington during his four years out of power — with a notable exception being an August 2023 trip from Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport to a D.C. federal court, during which he pleaded not guilty to four counts to overturn the 2020 elections.
It was “very sad driving through Washington, D.C. and seeing the filth and the decay and all of the broken buildings and walls and graffiti,” Trump said on the tarmac just before leaving the D.C. area. “This is not the place that I left. It’s a very sad thing to see.”
D.C. is rebounding from the pandemic, which battered the region’s economy that is supported by in-person work from federal employees, ushered in a since-diminished spike in crime and exacerbated the city’s homelessness crisis.
The president and Congress have the authority to undercut the District’s political machinery by rejecting any bill the local administration puts forward and proposing their own. And Trump’s congressional allies have already moved to disrupt the power balance in the District through legislation introduced earlier this month that could undo a 1970s-era law that allowed the nation’s capital to largely govern itself.
Republicans have made similar threats to undermine the D.C. government during Mayor Muriel Bowser’s decade-long tenure. But they were toothless because of Democratic opposition in Congress or the White House.
Even when Republicans gained control of the House and Senate during Trump’s first term, he didn’t follow through on his threats, including one that would have overridden D.C. governance by temporarily overtaking agencies like the Metropolitan police. Trump also relied heavily on executive orders to go after immigrants from sanctuary cities like D.C., but those were not targeted specifically to his then-home city and were mostly rescinded by former President Joe Biden.
This time, a reenergized Trump armed again with a Republican majority in Congress has said he would tighten his grip on D.C.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment for this article.
If Trump and congressional Republicans dip into city affairs, they would drastically shift the relationship between the Bowser administration and the federal government, which has largely stayed out of local politics in recent years.
About two years ago, Congress stymied local efforts to decrease crime penalties, marking the first time in three decades that Capitol Hill officials have successfully flexed this muscle. Congress has also repeatedly passed a rider blocking commercial sales of recreational marijuana in the District.
Republicans on Capitol Hill have justified the local government takeover by skewering the Bowser administration for a recent surge in crime that they say she has mishandled. Homicides surged during the pandemic to a decades-long zenith of 273 cases in 2023, though this figure dipped by 32 percent in 2024, according to D.C. police data.
“The radically progressive regime of D.C. Mayor Bowser has left our nation’s Capital in crime-ridden shambles,” Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.), one of the co-sponsors for the latest congressional push to defang D.C.’s government, said in a press release. “Bowser and her corrupt Washington City Council are incapable of managing the city.”
Bowser and the council have grown tougher on crime since Trump’s first term. Last March, as the city reeled from a spate of carjackings and homicides, the local government passed a crime omnibus package that imposed harsher penalties for crimes like retail theft and illegal gun possession.
“We will not tolerate violence and we will not tolerate criminal activity that disrupts our sense of safety and our ability to build thriving neighborhoods,” Bowser said in a statement following the passage of the bill.
Bowser has tried to further soothe Trump and other Republicans by focusing on “shared priorities for the president’s second term,” like bringing the D.C. region’s federal workforce back to underutilized federal buildings and developing more green spaces and infrastructure, she said in December.
Now, as the city attempts to maintain diplomacy with Republicans, the largely Democratic D.C. Council has to get creative to pass their agendas.
Before Republicans took control of Congress and the presidency on Election Day, the city council was about to pass a pair of bills that would have required insurers to study reparations and fully cover vasectomy procedures. Weeks after the GOP assumed control of Congress and the presidency, the council changed the name of the vasectomy bill to the “Insurance Regulation Amendment Act” as part of a preemptive effort to dodge ire from Republicans, who had launched a national crusade against reproductive rights.
“When we had a fight over the revised criminal code, the Council lost control of the messaging,” Council chairman Phil Mendelson told The Washington Post. “Lesson learned. We need to be sensitive to messaging.”
For her part, Bowser still appears optimistic about her relationship with Trump — who she met with at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida in December — even as the president further derides her city and leadership.
“I agree with the president-elect on this point,” Bowser said in December. “We want to make our nation’s capital the most beautiful capital in the world.”
Byron Donalds says he is not a ‘yes man’ to Trump
lead image
The progressive political action committee Justice Democrats has appointed Rev. Hodari Williams as its new executive director. The change sets the organization up to hone a civil rights message ahead of the 2028 election cycle, Williams told Blue Light News.
His appointment, shared first with Blue Light News, comes at a time when self-proclaimed progressives (and socialists) are flooding the scene. The PAC has had its most successful election cycle ever, helping seven candidates — including Donavan McKinney in Michigan, Melat Kiros in Colorado and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York — defeat incumbents in the primaries. While those candidates are heavily favored to win on Election Day, the fates of three other Justice Democrats candidates, including Tennessee’s state Rep. Justin Pearson, remain less certain going into November.
At one point, the group tried to get Williams to run for office. Though he declined, Williams said now is the right time to force change.
“America and its present-day politicians, from my experience, have a high blood pressure of promises and anemia of political courage,” Williams said in an interview, using a common Kenyan political expression. “Right now, JD is producing candidates who have the political courage to deal with the crises that are existing in marginalized and disenfranchised communities, and I want to be a part of that.”
Williams, 46, was born and raised in Lakewood, New Jersey. His parents were activists and community organizers who raised him on the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement. After graduating from Francis Marion University in Florence, South Carolina, with his bachelor’s degree, he joined the NAACP as a field organizer for voter rights and empowerment while pursuing his Master’s of Divinity at the Interdenominational Theological Center. In his time with the NAACP, Williams traveled across the Black Belt, where he said he witnessed poverty and inequity up close.
“Civil rights traditionally has been something that people have tried to separate from progressivism … but these movements are inseparable,” said Williams. “What I witnessed in the South as a worker in voter rights and voter empowerment and education, and as a regional representative for the NAACP, was that the conditions that created inequity still existed and needed to be confronted and challenged.”
His work took him to Kenya, where he served as a program coordinator with the Presbyterian Church USA. In Nairobi, he supported the Green Belt Movement’s work against deforestation and its mission to highlight environmental justice as a tool for economic empowerment and self-determination.
Now, as some Black and brown voters express concerns of being tokenized by traditional Democratic candidates, Williams plans to bring his experience working in racial justice circles to his new role.
“I have worked in communities that have borne the brunt of failed promises from the current Democratic leadership,” Williams said. “I have opened the doors of my congregations to politicians and have experienced the absence of those politicians after the elections.”
He continued: “Black communities have become destinations for environmental hazards and data centers. Unemployment has risen. Black federal employees have been targeted. The list goes on. I’ve pastored these people. I’ve prayed with them. I’ve listened to them as they’ve shed tears. Now I’ve decided I want to move from triage work to really transformational work.”
Some of that work will require challenging other Black leaders.
“Unfortunately, many of our Black politicians have become victims of corporate capture, and their voices have been taken by entities like AIPAC,” said Williams, referring to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “They have not really been able to stand for the issues that are affecting the communities that that many of us are fighting for, and JD candidates are free from that, and they’re free to take bold and significant action to move forward legislation.”
But with the 2026 election cycle nearly over, the PAC is already brainstorming how to establish a strong progressive coalition for the 2028 presidential election. That will mean convincing the mainstream Democratic party that Justice Democrats have built a lasting coalition of the party’s base, said Williams.
“We hope that the Democratic Party would see that we’re developing a blueprint to show them how the base is being energized around the issues that are kitchen table issues that people want us to deal with,” said Williams.
“It’s not enough for us just to have a call to defeat a fascist president. We don’t want a fascist president. We want him out, but we also want a vision of what America could look like when affordability, healthcare, civil rights, housing, and livable wages — all of those things are at the top of the political agenda,” he added.
Williams succeeds current executive director and co-founder Alexandra Rojas, who will become president of Justice Democrats’ board and will support Williams as a senior adviser.
Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson took a swipe at the savings habits of millennials as she fielded a question Wednesday about Social Security during a Senate campaign debate.
Hinson, the Republican candidate facing off against Democrat state Rep. Josh Turek, was asked about ensuring the solvency of Social Security when she raised the broader prospect of savings by millennials, the demographic consisting of people born from 1981-1996.
She said the country needed to have a “serious conversation” about “how young people are saving money,” as part of the discussion about the future of Social Security.
“We also need to be talking about millennials saving money,” she later added. “Millennials are the worst group of savers in the country right now and have the least amount of savings. So those are ways where I think we can help have a bigger conversation around saving in general, planning for retirement, and making sure we’re all able to experience a robust retirement.”
Hinson faces a tough race in Iowa against Turek amid a difficult political environment for Republicans. Voters are overwhelmingly pessimistic about the state of the economy and their own personal finances, and they support Social Security while being concerned about the program’s future.
Hinson said she would not support cutting benefits and suggested creating a bipartisan commission to present suggestions to Congress to save the program. When pushed on her statement that “all options should be on the table,” she turned her attention to young people.
“I think my dad and I had this discussion when I was in sixth grade, looking at a ledger book and trying to figure out, hey, how are we going to make sure you’re set up for your life?” she said. “So we need to be having a conversation simultaneously to all solutions on the table, to make sure that it can stay solvent, while we’re also talking about, how do we get more young people to save?”
Hinson’s campaign did not immediately respond to a request for clarification.
Turek, when asked about Social Security, said he supports removing the payroll tax cap.
“The best way we can keep this solvent is by taking off the cap,” Turek said. “Let’s make sure that billionaires and large corporations are paying their fair share. That will move the needle in a very serious way to keep Social Security solvent.”
Hinson disagreed. “The only thing I’m hearing from him is that the only solution to everything is to raise taxes,” she said.
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words