D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser is responding to criticisms about crime data in the city and reacting to a plan for National Guard members to start carrying weapons.
Speaking exclusively to WTOP at a back-to-school event at the RFK Campus, Bowser said city leaders have been reporting data that the Justice Department confirms, adding, “We’re going to keep doing the same things that we do.”
Bowser’s comments came at the end of the second full week of President Donald Trump’s law enforcement surge in the city. On Friday afternoon, Trump said the extra law enforcement presence is working and that there were no murders in D.C. in the last week.
“I’m tired of listening to these people say how safe it was before we got here,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Friday. “It was unsafe. It was horrible. And Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor very long because we’ll take it over with the federal government, run it like it’s supposed to be run.”
When asked about the criticism of the city’s grasp on crime and the law enforcement surge, Bowser said her “position is the same. I know a bob and weave when I hear one.”
While D.C. leaders maintain that crime is at a 30-year low, Trump said the city was “extremely unsafe, and now it’s extremely safe. We had virtually no crime. The number was down 87% and I’m trying to figure out where was the 13% because I don’t think it existed.”
Meanwhile, National Guard troops tasked with roaming D.C. streets as part of the increased presence will start carrying weapons, a reversal in initial policy. Bowser said the National Guard shouldn’t be used for policing, and “I think there are some legal questions that are going to be raised by that.”
Speaking broadly about issues with the law enforcement surge, Bowser said there are “many concerns about the intrusion of our autonomy, but the characterization of our beautiful city as a dirty city is preposterous.”
Trump said Friday he’s planning to ask Congress for $2 billion to carry out his plans to make improvements across the city.
“We have the No. 1 park system in the United States, that includes our federal parks and our local parks,” Bowser said. “We welcome the president getting more money to support federal parks. That should have been happening all along, and so if he’s able to deliver that for Washington, D.C., that’s a great thing.”
Bowser confirmed a Washington Post report that Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are joining D.C. police officers on traffic stops involving mopeds, saying it’s “not new. We’ve been talking about that for two weeks.”
When asked about an image of Bowser and D.C. police Chief Pamela Smith greeting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, Bowser said it was nothing more than a handshake.
“I talked to him, but I wouldn’t call it a meeting. And if it was, I wouldn’t be talking about it right now,” she added.
She declined to share details of the conversation, instead saying, “We always talk with the administration about shared priorities.”
Separately, as D.C. students prepare to return to the classroom Monday, Bowser said she’s “hearing from a lot of parents that the same (supplies) list is about 50% more expensive. These tariffs are starting to hit American families.”
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