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Matt Katz: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. I'm Matt Katz, filling in for Brian today. Now we'll talk about President Trump's recent move to take control of the DC Police Department and deploy the National Guard in the Capitol over the objections of local officials and despite the fact that violent crime in that city has dropped sharply. Homicides down more than 30% since last year, armed carjackings are down more than 50%, yet Trump has declared a "crime emergency" and cited outdated statistics to justify federal intervention.

In a recent edition of The Atlantic's daily newsletter, David Graham makes clear that this isn't just a PR stunt or campaign season flex. It's a raw assertion of presidential power, one that overrides the will of local voters and treats a US city like a stage set. Graham argues that this fits into a disturbing pattern. Trump has repeatedly used the military as a political prop, and now he's showing how easily that spectacle can become a blueprint for authoritarian control.

David Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic, author of The Atlantic Daily newsletter, and author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America. He joins us now to talk about what this federal takeover could mean for DC residents, for Democratic norms, and for Trump's broader strategy of forcing his opponents into impossible choices. Hi, David. Welcome back to WNYC.

David Graham: Oh, thank you for having me.

Matt Katz: Listeners, what do you make of President Trump's decision to take control of the DC Police Department and deploy the National Guard in the Capitol? Do you live in DC? Do you live in another city where crime or the perception of crime is shaping politics? Give us a buzz. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. David, what exactly did Trump announce about the DC police and the National Guard? We keep saying takeover. What are the details of it?

David Graham: Well, so there are two things. One is that Trump is deploying the DC National Guard to enforce laws. It's on the streets of the Capitol. They were starting to fan out last night. The DC National Guard is under the control of the president rather than under control of the mayor, since there's no governor in DC. He's also taking over control of the Metropolitan Police Department under existing laws. This is something that has not been used before, but the law does provide.

What that means in practice, no one quite knows because it's never been done. There is the leadership structure to the DC police. He says that the attorney general and the head of the DEA will be overseeing them, but we're still trying to understand what that means on a day-to-day basis.

Matt Katz: The role of the Drug Enforcement Administration, that's unusual. I saw a mention in The Times yesterday that a reporter went up to a DEA agent who is just patrolling the National Mall down in DC, and this agent said, "We haven't seen anything, but that's why we're out. It's just to make sure everybody enjoys their evening." I thought that was so bizarre. Like, what do we know about what they're doing? Are these like guys with DEA vests on just walking a street beat? Any sense of what they're actually up to?

David Graham: Right. We're starting to get it. It's still early, but we've seen guys in DEA gear or in FBI gear walking around neighborhoods, talking to people smoking on their stoops, walking around the mall, appearing at basketball courts where people are playing pickup basketball. They seem to be walking the beat. What they're there to do is a little unclear. It's also unclear quite where they are.

When you see people on the National Mall, for example, for folks who are not familiar with DC, that's a highly trafficked area. That's not a place where you have a great deal of crime. A lot of the crime is taking place in residential neighborhoods, and we don't yet know how or whether these folks are deployed in those places.

Matt Katz: "Just to make sure everybody enjoys their evening." [chuckles] Wild. You wrote that Trump's language, he's called the deployment "Liberation Day" in DC masks, what this really is, and that's a seizure of power from a city that's repeatedly voted against him. What would you like to say about that language he's using here, liberation?

David Graham: I think it is kind of Orwellian. To your point about people having a good evening, that quotation, I think it's interesting because, for some folks, maybe the presence of guys in fatigues does make them feel safe. For other people, I think it feels like a threat, and it feels like an imposed threat. You have in DC a city that's heavily Democratic, a city that clashed with Trump during his first term. Famously, the mayor had them paint Black Lives Matter on the street across from the White House, which is something that certainly irritated the Trump administration.

There isn't any desire for this from residents of DC, although there does seem to be some advocacy for it from Republicans who are serving in DC. I think this is an example of where Trump likes to see the power he has, flex it, and use it as intimidation. By showing that he can send out troops, he can send out federal law enforcement to the streets over the desires of people, I think he's showing where the power lies. He also wants to see if he can be effective in that, potentially, and use it in other cities, as he said in his press conference announcing this.

Matt Katz: We actually have a caller from DC who has something to say about this, Carol in Washington. Hi, Carol. Thanks for calling in.

Carol: Hi, can you hear me?

Matt Katz: Yes, we can. You're on with David Graham.

Carol: Okay, great. I'm from New York, and I've been living down here 10 years, and I go back and forth. I've been actually coming back and forth for the last 20 years. I can tell you that since COVID, I do not feel safe down here. Definitely looking over your shoulder day and night. I work near Union Station, two, three blocks from the Capitol. I do walk down around toward the Mall, toward the Capitol during the day, and so forth. I can understand people being concerned, seeing all this military down at the Mall and at the museums and such.

When you get into these side streets where the neighborhoods are, it's a whole other story. The problem I find is that these children, who know the law, know that they can commit whatever, and still wind up back at home. That's been the problem. You've literally got teenagers running around dressed like ninjas in 95-degree temperature and in little groups. There are places in the city, like the Wharf, which is a beautiful place by the water. It's amazing. I don't go there. I won't take my family there because they've had to have curfews set in place because this mobs the kids. I also know people on the police force. They are up against a lot down here, and it's about the laws.

Matt Katz: Would you feel safer if there's guys in fatigues patrolling these streets with M16 rifles? Is that a legitimate solution?

Carol: Honestly, we've had that when there were some protests going on in this immediate area because, again, I'm near the Capitol, I'm near Union Station. There was a military presence. We've got all forces, all ends of it, Capitol Police, Homeland Security, just MPD, APD all around, depending on what threat or heightened threat, but the daily existence of worrying about, and mostly teenagers.

Also, there are the people with mental health issues that are still living on the street. They keep showing on TV those little camps. That, I think, is the view from the Kennedy Center. I think that's where that's coming from. In and around here, where we are near the Capitol and the station and very busy areas, lots of apartment buildings, lots of people, there's an element that just won't go away. There's the drug use and everything. Could it be like every city? Yes. As long as nobody addresses it, it's just going to get worse. That's my feeling.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Carol. Thanks for your perspective from the streets of DC. David, Carol's assertions about increased crime belie some of the stats, right? I mean, Trump also said crime is skyrocketing. What's your take on what Carol was describing?

David Graham: I think I'd say a few things. One is, Carol said, since the pandemic, and that's certainly true. Between 2020 and 2023, there was a huge rise in crime in DC and nationwide. We saw some of the highest rises in crimes in recent memory. It's all well and good to say, for example, that's still lower than the peak in the '80s and '90s, but you don't want to see a rise in crime like that.

That said, since 2023, DC has seen a steep drop in crime in all reported crimes: violent crime, carjacking, which are a real problem. Those are the numbers. I think also, people are going to feel what they feel. People should feel safe. It's important that people feel safe. I will say I've spent a fair amount of time around the Wharf. That's where The Atlantic's Washington offices are. I haven't felt threatened, but if people feel that way, that's a problem.

One question I would ask is, are the presence of National Guardsmen who are not trained in law enforcement and agents from other agencies that are not trained in municipal police work, under the leadership mostly of federal officials who have not worked in municipal police forces likely to make things better, or are they likely to focus on the wrong things? I have a lot of questions about whether they're likely to achieve the goals that Trump is setting out for them.

Matt Katz: David, Trump appointed Attorney General Pam Bondi and DEA Administrator Terry Cole to oversee this takeover, neither of whom have experience in municipal policing, let alone some of the specific concerns that Carol had, which was homelessness, mental illness, and marauding teenagers, right? What should we understand about the selection of these two people in the Cabinet and the possible consequences of that?

David Graham: I think what we're seeing is a triumph of messaging, maybe over methods. Trump is going to the people who he has, who he trusts, who are in his administration. Former Judge Jeanine Pirro, who's now the US attorney for Washington, was interviewed yesterday, and she was asked about how she would approach the root causes of crime in DC. One of the examples was truancy, which gets to the teenager question. Her answer is, basically, "I'm not interested in the root causes. We're just going to arrest them."

That's the sort of thing that veteran police would tell you. You can drive down crime rates in the short term by doing that, but if you're not addressing the causes like that, you're not going to have a sustainable decrease. Because we haven't heard a lot from people like Bondi about what kind of policing strategy they want, it's hard to assess any more directly so far.

Matt Katz: We have a caller, Morenike, in Brooklyn. Hi there. Thanks for calling in. I hope I'm saying your name right. Morenike in Brooklyn, used to live in DC, are you there? I guess we lost you. All right, try again. Oh, maybe you're there now.

Morenike: Hello? Hello? Hello? Hello?

Matt Katz: Hi, thanks for calling in. We got you.

Morenike: Hello? Okay. Hello. I was just calling to say, although I'm from Brooklyn, I lived in DC for six months in our last conversation in an effort to find affordable rent with in-unit laundry. I lived right by the Wharf in 2022, so during that time, which your last caller mentioned, and I didn't feel unsafe at all. Obviously, there's different kind of communities. Yes, there's kids who hang out around the subway, but I never felt in danger.

I think one of the issues is the lack of cultural competency or just cultural awareness. Obviously, the cities that Trump and Pam Bondi are deciding to target are majority Black in many ways, with Black mayors. It's definitely like a racial and a racist dog whistle in terms of law and order when we know that the statistics show that DC has a 30-year crime low, Baltimore has a 50-year crime low. I think where people-- is there a perception of life safety, and also what's the reality?

I think we have to deal with the perception because a lot of the perception of being unsafe is, frankly, feeling unsafe with Black people, and what does that mean, and how do we look at that? Because it's not that those places are unsafe, it's you feel unsafe. Those two things are very different.

Matt Katz: Thank you, Morenike. I really appreciate you calling in. Interesting perspective, David. It checks out. Certainly, when Trump talks about policing and crime in big cities that are minority cities, it does feel like a dog whistle often, doesn't it?

David Graham: That's right. We have Trump's own personal history of making racist remarks, and then we have a long history of his remarks talking about Baltimore, for example, is unlivable. I'm talking about Chicago. He describes these places as real hellscapes. There's a strong correlation between Black population, Black political leadership, and the places that he goes after.

I also think it's been interesting in the last couple days to hear the discourse around statistics. What some of the people who are Trump allies or intellectuals aligned with Trump on this will say is, this isn't about statistics. Maybe the stats are right, maybe they aren't, but this is about a question of order. They're concerned about something that's not measured by statistics and might not actually be something you can deal with by arrests or by charges. It might be something you can try to intimidate people out of by putting a lot of men and women in uniform on street corners.

Matt Katz: You mentioned those other cities. Does this set any sort of precedent for opening the door for future deployments of federal forces in other cities like New York?

David Graham: I would say yes and no. DC is an unusual situation because the federal government has so much control over it. It doesn't function like a normal state, like a normal city. Trump can do things there that he couldn't do elsewhere. He's also shown agility about testing his limits where he can. He made clear in his press conference, he would like to try this in other cities. We've seen him deploy over the objections of the California governor, the California National Guard to Los Angeles, as well as Marine troops.

I think what we see is, Trump is interested in using the federal government and military forces, whether active duty or National Guard, in the streets of the United States and in American cities very clearly.

Matt Katz: I know the circumstances surrounding this deployment might be unprecedented, but I was thinking about it, and it's just not unprecedented to see armed US troops in American cities doing policing duties. Since 9/11, we've seen National Guard in this city for years, just to see National Guardsmen from rural New York in military fatigues at Penn Station, 19, 20-year-olds, fingers by the triggers of their M16s, dressed as if they're in a jungle somewhere in their camo, and they're called in for supposed terrorist threats and to assist with policing and when there's protests. DC residents, too, have seen military personnel in their streets for years.

In that sense, I wonder if Trump is really breaking precedent here or just expanding a precedent that was set in the years after 9/11.

David Graham: I think it's a little bit of both. I do think that New York is a little bit unusual in that way. Of course, those troops have been called out by the governor and not by the president.

Matt Katz: Right, true. Okay, fair enough.

David Graham: Well, we saw it in Los Angeles. It doesn't matter the way people experience, but it does matter, I think, for setting a precedent. It's odd in this case, too, because, unlike situations where we've seen the National Guard either helping with terrorist situations or dealing with rioting, as we've seen in some cities, there's not a clear proximate cause for this. Trump cites these examples of crime, but as we've said, crime is down. There wasn't one clear incident. The kind of nebulous reasoning, I think, makes this a little bit different as well.

Matt Katz: Let's go back to the phone lines. Annette in Laurelton, Queens. Hi, Annette. Thanks for calling in.

Annette: Yes, good morning.

Matt Katz: Good morning.

Annette: Well, the main thing, he wants us to forget about January 6th when his followers did what they did, and they got away with it. We will not. Those of us who have any common sense will not forget this. All he's trying to do is to bait the good citizens in DC to have some kind of Mount March, so if it goes out of hand or something so he could justify his action. I hope those good citizens do not fall for the president who has 34 felony counts and misconduct, sexual misconduct, given any kind of crime solution. Let's be real. I'm glad I'm a New Yorker, and I understand exactly who he is. I hope the people in DC understand what they're dealing with. Have a good day.

Matt Katz: You too, Annette. A fellow Queens native, just like the president. We're getting a lot of messages, David, from people who are describing what Annette's describing, that this is a distraction. I mean, she's saying that Trump is baiting people into a fight here, really, and he wants a confrontation on the streets of DC. We have callers saying that this is just an intention to distract from the Epstein files. It was a surprise. He opened the week with this. It's what we're talking about. It's what's leading the major newspapers in the country.

How much of this is a political distraction? Is there just like a PDF somewhere in the White House that says different things that they can move forward with when they want to distract from a media cycle that they don't like?

David Graham: I think it's more instinctive for Trump than having a set playbook. He certainly does like to change the subject. We've seen him very upset about coverage of Epstein and wanting to get people to talk about things. We've seen him lashing out at reporters who ask him questions about it. It has lasted a very long time for a Trump news cycle. I think it's true that he welcomes the distraction. There's a close correlation between what members of Congress and people in his orbit are saying, in particular what's on Fox News, and this move. It seems like maybe he was a little bit prompted by what he saw on television. That's a pattern we've seen before.

Then I'd also say to the college point, January 6th is an interesting point because, on January 6th, they were pleased to deploy the DC National Guard to protect the Capitol and to tamp down on the insurrection. Trump refused to do that. The January 6th commission in the House found that Mike Pence was the person who finally made that call and brought in the National Guard. It's striking that he was unwilling to do so in that circumstance and is today.

Matt Katz: He did use the military during the George Floyd protests, obviously federalized the California National Guard recently for a short-lived immigration. Some call it a stunt. This fits that pattern, though, right?

David Graham: That's exactly right.

Matt Katz: You cited conservative activist Christopher Rufo, who said this is an opportunity for Trump to do a Bukele-style crackdown on DC crime. What's the significance of that comparison by somebody who clearly has influence in MAGA world to El Salvador's president? What does that tell us about just the worldview behind this move?

David Graham: I think it's striking that as you have a lot of people on the left and in the center criticizing Trump for authoritarianism, you have some people in his orbit saying, "No, no, that's unfair. He simply wants to bring safety to the DC streets." You have somebody like Rufo, who's very influential in the administration, saying, "No, no, that's exactly what this is. We want to imitate Nayib Bukele, the president of El Salvador, who's somebody who has locked up tens of thousands of people without due process, who has run for an unconstitutional term in office, who has really eroded the Salvadoran constitution."

That's the vision that I think some people on the MAGA right are interested in. I think that's one reason why it's hard to feel safe about this or to write it off as a simple policing operation that's aimed at local crime.

Matt Katz: Or to just say, oh, it's just another political distraction and we shouldn't talk about it, because, in those terms, it does sound quite serious. Then the other piece of this is, he sets a trap for a political opponent. It's an impossible choice here. You wrote about this. Tell me about that. We've seen it for years now, this trap that he sets for his opponents.

David Graham: I think something can be both a distraction and also a real danger. That's one of the things that makes him effective is you can't really choose on that. I think you see him pushing Democrats into really difficult places. I've been thinking about redistricting and gerrymandering, where you have Democrats criticizing Republicans for wanting to gerrymander House districts in Texas, but at the same time saying, "We're going to gerrymander our own districts."

You are in a position of either unilaterally disarming and saying, "We're not going to gerrymander, but we could potentially lose control of the House of this." You can get rid of your sense of fairness and go for the gerrymander, but you lose what you're fighting for there. I think he's repeatedly managed to place both his critics in the Democratic Party, also people in his own administration, all kinds of people into this position of choosing between two really bad options.

Matt Katz: Let's go to Daniel in Manhattan. Daniel, thanks for calling in. You're on with David Graham.

Daniel: Good morning. Remembering that in April, Trump was taking credit for a 25% drop in crime in DC. I think so far, this is the most effective distraction from the Epstein case, don't you think?

Matt Katz: Thank you very much for calling, Daniel. Yes, we touched on this, David. Is it successfully distracting from the Epstein case? While you're at it, what is the latest with the Epstein story here?

David Graham: I think it is, at least for the time being, a distraction. One thing that has made Epstein so enduring is that there's a kind of constant drip, drip. We saw this week a federal judge refusing to release grand jury transcripts from that case. We have more questions about Ghislaine Maxwell's transfer to a lower security prison. I think we're going to continue to hear about that. Democrats who have struggled to find a winning message of their own have grasped how powerful this is, and they're going to continue to talk about it and try to keep it in the news as well. It may recede a little bit, but I wouldn't expect it to go away entirely.

Matt Katz: David, thank you for being on top of all this stuff. David Graham is a staff writer at The Atlantic, author of The Atlantic Daily newsletter, and author of The Project: How Project 2025 Is Reshaping America. David, appreciate you joining us today.

David Graham: It's great to talk. Thank you.

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