LEILA FADEL, HOST:
For a deeper look at President Trump's relationship with the nation's capital, we've got George Derek Musgrove with us. He's associate - he's an associate professor of history at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, and co-author of the book "Chocolate City: A History Of Race And Democracy In The Nation's Capital." Derek, good morning, and thank you for being on the program.
GEORGE DEREK MUSGROVE: Good morning, Leila.
FADEL: So the federal government and the city of Washington, D.C., often collaborate on law enforcement - for example, with the inauguration or big demonstrations in D.C. What's different about the way that relationship is being handled now?
MUSGROVE: Well, that's absolutely right. And not only do they collaborate on things like the inauguration, but back in the 1990s, when we had an actual crime crisis, the MPD worked very closely with the National Guard and other federal authorities to do law enforcement work. What's different now is that that relationship is not cooperative. The mayor is not in regular conversation with the president about this coming deployment. She wasn't about the deployment that occurred this weekend. And so what we have is a federal government deploying federal assets on the streets of Washington, D.C., without talking to local elected officials and without their consent.
FADEL: And what does that mean, then, for D.C. and its residents, with this tense relationship between the administration and the city?
MUSGROVE: Well, I think it means a violation of the principle of home rule. You just don't have input from the elected representatives of the people of the district in what's happening. But of course, you also don't have a real policy rationale for this in the first place. The president's claiming a crime crisis that really doesn't exist. There's absolutely crime in the district, but it's, you know, not a crisis. In fact, if we think about it in the context of the precipitating event, the MPD actually did a great job of making sure that Mr. Coristine was not further hurt and his car stolen. You know, they stopped the crime.
FADEL: You're referring there to a former DOGE staffer who was assaulted last week. Now, you mentioned home rule - the Home Rule Act of 1973, which gave D.C. a level of independence from the federal government. Trump has repeatedly suggested that the governance of D.C. should or could be returned to federal authorities because of this picture he paints of the city of squalor and unchecked crime. Why was that law passed in the first place?
MUSGROVE: Well, it was passed for, I think, two reasons. I mean, one is that it was an embarrassment after World War II, when the United States is putting itself forward as the leader of the free world, that our capital, roughly 800,000 residents at the time, didn't have a democratic say in how they were governed. We have to remember that back in the 1940s, 1950s, D.C. residents couldn't even vote for president, didn't have a nonvoting delegate to Congress and, of course, didn't have a local government. And so it was a violation of our principles - of the principle of no taxation without representation - at a time when we were trying to project those principles to the world.
But the other is that D.C. was really poorly managed. Congress didn't do a great job of running the city. And so there was a need, particularly expressed by President Lyndon Johnson, to put together a proper city government that could do all of the very complex things that a city government has to do.
FADEL: And in the few seconds we have left, I mean, if it's repealed or not respected, what does that mean for D.C. and its residents?
MUSGROVE: Well, the hope is that it won't be repealed, of course. But what it would mean was that we would have even less rights as American citizens than we have currently. Right now we have no say in Congress outside of our nonvoting delegate, who's wonderful but does not have a vote on the floor, and we, of course, have no representatives in the Senate. And so it would be a further insult to the people of D.C.
FADEL: George Derek Musgrove, a historian at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. Thank you for your time and your insights.
MUSGROVE: Thank you.
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