{"id":160530,"date":"2025-08-13T14:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-08-13T14:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/dc-mayor-hardens-stance-on-trumps-authoritarian-deployment-of-national-guard-us-politics-live-the-guardian\/"},"modified":"2025-08-13T14:00:30","modified_gmt":"2025-08-13T14:00:30","slug":"dc-mayor-hardens-stance-on-trumps-authoritarian-deployment-of-national-guard-us-politics-live-the-guardian","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/dc-mayor-hardens-stance-on-trumps-authoritarian-deployment-of-national-guard-us-politics-live-the-guardian\/","title":{"rendered":"DC mayor hardens stance on Trump\u2019s \u2018authoritarian\u2019 deployment of national guard \u2013 US politics live – The Guardian"},"content":{"rendered":"

Muriel Bowser urges community members to \u2018protect our autonomy\u2026 and get to the other side of this guy\u2019 amid Trump\u2019s intervention
Muriel Bowser last night hardened her stance on Donald Trump<\/a> using federal agents to police the city, calling the president\u2019s move an \u201cauthoritarian push\u201d.<\/strong>
Speaking during a live town hall on social media, the mayor of Washington DC<\/a> urged community members to \u201cprotect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push\u201d.
\u201cWe are not 700,000 scumbags and punks,\u201d she added. \u201cWe don\u2019t have neighborhoods that should be bulldozed. We have to be clear about our story, who we are and what we want for our city.\u201d
Bowser had previously pledged to work \u201cside with side\u201d with the federal officials Trump has tasked with overseeing the city\u2019s law enforcement, while insisting the police chief remained in charge of the department and its officers.
Speaking on Tuesday after a meeting with Pam Bondi, the attorney general, Bowser told reporters: \u201cWhat I\u2019m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have.\u201d
About 850 officers and agents took part in a \u201cmassive law enforcement surge\u201d across Washington DC on Monday night and made nearly two dozen arrests, the White House has said. The violent crime rate in Washington DC is at a 30-year low<\/a>.
Trump\u2019s intervention has been widely condemned as an authoritarian power grab that undermines the autonomy of Washington\u2019s DC local government and seeks to distract attention from political problems such as the Jeffrey Epstein files.
An interesting news nugget today comes by way of writer Kyle Tharp \u2013\u00a0who writes the Chaotic Era newsletter.
In his latest post<\/a> he finds that only three politicians have found much success in their podcast endeavors. Tharp\u2019s reporting, which uses data from Podscribe, finds that Republican senator Ted Cruz<\/strong> of Texas averaged more than 1.4 million monthly downloads last month for his podcast \u201cThe Verdict\u201d.
Meanwhile, California\u2019s Democratic governor Gavin Newsom<\/strong> and Republican congressman Dan Crenshaw<\/strong> managed to break more than 400,000 and 300,000 downloads for their respective shows.
There\u2019s a precipitous drop in average monthly downloads after that, according to Tharp. He reports that \u201cmore than two dozen leading elected officials\u201d have attempted to host their own podcasts in recent years.
Also today, we can expect to hear from Texas Democrats<\/strong> \u2013 who left the state house over a week ago to deny quorum in protest of gerrymandered GOP-drawn maps.
The legislators will join Indiana lawmakers as the Trump administration applies pressure on the Indiana governor Mike Braun<\/strong> to also redraw the state\u2019s map.
A reminder that yesterday, the Texas Senate<\/strong> approved a map that would give Republicans five more House seats<\/a> ahead of the 2026 midterms. <\/strong>But since House Democrats continue to break quorum, the legislation isn\u2019t going anywhere. Speaker Dustin Burrows said the House will adjourn until Friday<\/strong>, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time.
If Friday\u2019s attempt fails, Texas governor Greg Abbott<\/strong> said he\u2019ll call a second session immediately.
Rural communities are seeing a key aspect of life affected amid Trump\u2019s immigration crackdown and Ice raids.<\/strong>
Harrisonburg, Virginia<\/a>, a town of 50,000 people in the Shenandoah Valley, should have been alive with the color, sound and smells of local Latino culture. Soccer tournaments, taco trucks, Salvadorian chanchona<\/em> musical bands and about 4,000 visitors were last month set to attend the town\u2019s Hispanic Festival held at a sports complex outside the town.
But this year, it\u2019s not happening.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) agents have been active<\/a> in the Harrisonburg area for months, prompting organizers to cancel the festival.
\u201cThere have been instances of raids targeting immigrant families and workplaces in the past. While we had no confirmed reports that Ice planned to target the festival, the general climate of fear is very real,\u201d says Crimson Solano, executive director of the Coalici\u00f3n Solidaria Pro-Inmigrantes Unidos (COSPU), which runs the festival.
\u201cThis fear undermines the purpose of the festival, which is to create a safe, celebratory space for our community.\u201d
Festivals and fairs are a mainstay of small-town American life. But now from rural Indiana<\/a> to a tiny village in Washington state<\/a> to cornerstone Appalachian towns<\/a> such as Harrisonburg, Latino and other international festivals are being cancelled this summer due to fears of raids by Ice agents.
Read more here:<\/em>
My colleagues will be bringing you the very latest developments on the president\u2019s virtual meetings with<\/strong> Volodymyr Zelenskyy and European leaders<\/strong>.
You can follow along here<\/a>
As they noted, Donald Trump just praised his European counterparts as \u201cgreat people who want to see a deal done,\u201d in a post on Truth Social<\/a>.
The president has also undermined various reports that include critics of his upcoming meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/strong> in Alaska.
In a post on Truth Social<\/a>, Trump said that the \u201cvery unfair media\u201d is \u201cconstantly quoting fired losers and really dump people like John Bolton\u201d.
In an article published in The Atlantic <\/a>on Tuesday, the former national security adviser said that \u201cPutin has already won. He is the leader of a rogue state, and he\u2019ll get a picture on U.S. soil with the president of the United States\u201d.
Similarly, in an interview with CNN last week, Bolton said that the \u201cinitial set-up\u201d for Friday\u2019s summit is a \u201cgreat victory for Putin\u201d.
But Trump wasted no time in the post calling out the press as \u201care sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our country\u201d.
We can expect to hear from Donald Trump<\/a> at least a few times today. According to the president\u2019s daily schedule, he\u2019ll make an appearance at the Kennedy Center at 11am ET, and make an announcement.
He\u2019ll then head back to the White House and sign executive orders at 4pm ET. For now this will be closed press, but could very well open up.
Donald Trump, ahead of his planned virtual meeting with European leaders and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskiy later on Wednesday, praised Europe\u2019s leaders in a post on social media and said they \u201cwant to see a deal done.\u201d<\/strong>
In a post on Truth Social, the president wrote:
<\/path><\/svg>Will be speaking to European Leaders in a short while. They are great people who want to see a deal done.
That was followed shortly after with another post, criticising the way his upcoming meeting with Putin has been portrayed in the media.
Trump wrote:
<\/path><\/svg>Very unfair media is at work on my meeting with Putin. Constantly quoting fired losers and really dumb people like John Bolton, who just said that, even though the meeting is on American soil, \u201cPutin has already won.\u201d What\u2019s that all about? We are winning on EVERYTHING. The Fake News is working overtime (No tax on overtime!).
If I got Moscow and Leningrad free, as part of the deal with Russia, the Fake News would say that I made a bad deal! But now they\u2019ve been caught. Look at all of the real news that\u2019s coming out about their CORRUPTION. They are sick and dishonest people, who probably hate our Country. But it doesn\u2019t matter because we are winning on everything!!! MAGA
For more on Trump\u2019s calls with European leaders, follow our Europe live blog<\/a>.
Muriel Bowser last night hardened her stance on Donald Trump<\/a> using federal agents to police the city, calling the president\u2019s move an \u201cauthoritarian push\u201d.<\/strong>
Speaking during a live town hall on social media, the mayor of Washington DC<\/a> urged community members to \u201cprotect our city, to protect our autonomy, to protect our home rule and get to the other side of this guy and make sure we elect a Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push\u201d.
\u201cWe are not 700,000 scumbags and punks,\u201d she added. \u201cWe don\u2019t have neighborhoods that should be bulldozed. We have to be clear about our story, who we are and what we want for our city.\u201d
Bowser had previously pledged to work \u201cside with side\u201d with the federal officials Trump has tasked with overseeing the city\u2019s law enforcement, while insisting the police chief remained in charge of the department and its officers.
Speaking on Tuesday after a meeting with Pam Bondi, the attorney general, Bowser told reporters: \u201cWhat I\u2019m focused on is the federal surge and how to make the most of the additional officer support that we have.\u201d
About 850 officers and agents took part in a \u201cmassive law enforcement surge\u201d across Washington DC on Monday night and made nearly two dozen arrests, the White House has said. The violent crime rate in Washington DC is at a 30-year low<\/a>.
Trump\u2019s intervention has been widely condemned as an authoritarian power grab that undermines the autonomy of Washington\u2019s DC local government and seeks to distract attention from political problems such as the Jeffrey Epstein files.
In May, the Arizona representative Yassamin Ansari toured a detention facility where immigrants rounded up as part of the Trump administration\u2019s campaign of mass deportation were being housed. She described<\/a> what she saw inside as \u201csickening\u201d and \u201cworse than prison\u201d \u2013 immigrant detainees were held in overcrowded, moldy cells and many reported that they did not have reliable access to food, water or medical care.<\/strong>
Two months later, Ansari returned to the remote desert complex to conduct another congressional oversight visit. This time, she was denied entry.
It wasn\u2019t an isolated incident. From New York to California, Democratic members of Congress have been repeatedly blocked from entering Ice detention facilities where thousands of noncitizens \u2013 many with no criminal convictions \u2013 are being held.
Democratic officials\u2019 legislative checks \u2013 a legal right for members of Congress \u2013 have consistently confirmed reports that immigrant detainees are being kept in \u201cfilthy<\/a>\u201d and \u201cinhumane\u201d conditions with little regard for due process. <\/strong>Now, the facilities have become a battleground in the intensifying standoff between the Trump administration and Democratic lawmakers over the president\u2019s supercharged immigration agenda.
\u201cThe administration\u2019s goal is to intimidate us and bully us, bully us out of doing our jobs for sure,\u201d congresswoman LaMonica McIver, a New Jersey Democrat who has been accused of assaulting federal agents during a confrontation at the Delaney Hall detention center, told the Guardian. \u201cIf they can get away with doing this to me, they can get away with doing it to anyone. But more importantly, imagine what they\u2019re doing in the dark to others who are not of an elected status, who are not in public eye view.\u201d
McIver, who has pleaded not guilty, said her concerns took on new resonance when, a month later, detainees at the hastily-converted jailhouse pushed down a dormitory wall<\/a> \u2013 an act advocates described as an outcry against hunger and overcrowding.
The closely watched New York<\/a> mayoral and governor\u2019s races appear to be forming into shapes that will bring little comfort to centrist Democrats, with elections happening in November this year in New York City and the gubernatorial vote a year later.<\/strong>
A new Siena Institute poll<\/a> released on Tuesday shows New York City\u2019s Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani<\/a>, leading former New York governor Andrew Cuomo<\/a> by 19 percentage points \u2013 while the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik is chipping away at incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul<\/a>\u2019s lead in a hypothetical contest for the New York governor\u2019s mansion in 2026.
Hochul\u2019s lead over Stefanik, who was nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations before withdrawing to help Republicans maintain a majority in Congress, has now dropped from 23 points in June to 14 points.
Stefanik has not officially decided on whether to seek the governor\u2019s office, but she has been noticeably attacking Hochul\u2019s record. The poll found that 49% of voters in the state said it would be bad for New York<\/a> if Stefanik were elected governor.
\u201cThe latest Siena poll is catastrophic for Kathy Hochul<\/a> as she is losing independent voters to Elise Stefanik, is below 50% on the ballot, and only 35% of voters want to re-elect Kathy Hochul,\u201d said Stefanik\u2019s executive director Alex DeGrasse in a statement to the Guardian. He predicted voters are looking to Stefanik to deliver new leadership.
California governor Gavin Newsom<\/a> says the state will draw new electoral maps after Donald Trump \u201cmissed\u201d a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.<\/strong>
\u201cDONALD \u2018TACO\u2019 TRUMP, AS MANY CALL HIM, \u2018MISSED\u2019 THE DEADLINE!!!\u201d, Newsom\u2019s office wrote on social media<\/a>. \u201cCALIFORNIA WILL NOW DRAW NEW, MORE \u2018BEAUTIFUL MAPS,\u2019 THEY WILL BE HISTORIC AS THEY WILL END THE TRUMP PRESIDENCY (DEMS TAKE BACK THE HOUSE!)\u201d.
\u201cBIG PRESS CONFERENCE THIS WEEK WITH POWERFUL DEMS AND GAVIN NEWSOM \u2014 YOUR FAVORITE GOVERNOR \u2014 THAT WILL BE DEVASTATING FOR \u2018MAGA.\u2019 THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER! \u2014 GN,\u201d reads the post.
The post follows a series of snarky, all-caps tweets meant to mimic Trump\u2019s social media writing style.
Newsom was mocking Trump\u2019s moniker, \u201cTaco\u201d, short for \u201cTrump always chickens out\u201d, prompted by his flip-flopping deadlines.
Several states have waded into the redistricting wars, where Newsom and other Democratic state leaders had threatened to draw retaliatory maps if Texas<\/a> were to move ahead with its redistricting scheme.
Donald Trump\u2019s administration has significantly changed a key US government report on human rights worldwide, dramatically softening criticism of some countries that have been strong partners of the Republican president, such as El Salvador<\/a> and Israel, which rights groups say have well-established histories of abuses.<\/strong>
Instead, the US state department sounded an alarm about what it said was the erosion of freedom of speech in Europe and ramped up criticism of Brazil and South Africa<\/a> \u2013 both of which Washington has clashed with over a host of issues.
Criticism of governments over their treatment of LGBTQ+ rights, which appeared in Biden administration editions of the report, appeared to have been largely omitted. Washington referred to Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine<\/a> mainly as the \u201cRussia-Ukraine war\u201d.
The report\u2019s section on Israel was much shorter than last year\u2019s edition and contained no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis or death toll in Gaza<\/a>. About 61,000 people have died, according to the Gaza health ministry, as a result of Israel\u2019s military operations in response to an attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas in October 2023.
Indian prime minister Narendra Modi is likely to meet <\/strong> Donald Trump<\/a> during a visit to the US<\/strong> next month to attend the UN General Assembly meeting, the Indian Express newspaper reported on Wednesday, citing sources.<\/strong>
India\u2019s foreign ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
An Indian official familiar with the matter said a decision has not yet been taken, and that countries usually reserve slots for the general debate at the assembly, which is why India\u2019s \u201chead of government\u201d features in a provisional list of speakers on 26 September.
A US judge on Tuesday ordered <\/strong> the Trump<\/strong> administration to restore a part of the federal grant funding that it recently suspended for the University of California, Los Angeles.<\/strong>
US district judge Rita Lin in San Francisco ruled that the grant funding suspensions violated an earlier June preliminary injunction where she ordered the National Science Foundation to restore dozens of grants that it had terminated at the University of California.
That order had blocked the agency from cancelling other grants at the University of California system, of which UCLA is a part.
\u201cNSF\u2019s actions violate the Preliminary Injunction,\u201d Lin, an appointee of Democratic former president Joe Biden, wrote. The White House and the university had no immediate comment on the ruling.
UCLA said last week the government froze $584m in funding. Trump has threatened to cut federal funds for universities over pro-Palestinian student protests against US ally Israel\u2019s military assault on Gaza.
The Los Angeles Times newspaper reported that the judge\u2019s order asked for the restoration of more than a third of the suspended $584m funding.
The University of California said last week it was reviewing a settlement offer by the Trump administration for UCLA in which the university will pay $1bn. It said such a large payment would \u201cdevastate\u201d the institution.
The government alleges universities, including UCLA, allowed antisemitism during the protests.
Hello and welcome to the US politics<\/a> live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I will be bringing you all the latest news.
We start with the news that Donald Trump will be visiting the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, the same day that the recipients of this year\u2019s honors are announced<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Trump avoided the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term after artists said they would not attend out of protest. This year, he has taken over as the Kennedy Center\u2018s new chair and fired the board of trustees, which he replaced with loyalists.<\/p>\n

In a Truth Social post Tuesday, Trump teased a name change for the performing arts center and said it would be restored to its former glory, AP reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cGREAT Nominees for the TRUMP\/KENNEDY CENTER, whoops, I mean, KENNEDY CENTER, AWARDS,\u201d Trump wrote. He said work was being done on the site that would be \u201cbringing it back to the absolute TOP LEVEL of luxury, glamour, and entertainment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt had fallen on hard times, physically, BUT WILL SOON BE MAKING A MAJOR COMEBACK!!!\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n

It is unclear how this year\u2019s batch of honorees were chosen, though Trump had indicated he wanted a more active role. Historically, a bipartisan advisory committee selects the recipients, who over the years have ranged from George Balanchine and Tom Hanks to Aretha Franklin and Stephen Sondheim. A message sent to the Kennedy Center press office asking how this year\u2019s honorees were selected wasn\u2019t returned Tuesday.<\/p>\n

The Kennedy Center did post this on social media, however: \u201cComing Soon … A country music icon, an Englishman, a New York City Rock band, a dance Queen and a multi-billion dollar Actor walk into the Kennedy Center Opera House …\u201d
In other developments:
The DC national guard began deploying on the city\u2019s streets Tuesday night,<\/strong> a day after Trump ordered their arrival and took control of the city\u2019s police force, calling Washington DC a \u201clawless\u201d city, despite official crime statistics saying otherwise.
A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to immediately improve conditions at a New York City immigration holding facility<\/strong>, acting on mounting complaints from detainees that the cells are overcrowded, unsanitary and inhumane.
The Texas Senate approved a GOP-drawn congressional map that would give Republicans five more House seats ahead of the 2026 midterms. <\/strong>But since House Democrats continue to break quorum, the legislation isn\u2019t going anywhere. Speaker Dustin Burrows said the House will adjourn until Friday, at which point the legislature will attempt to reach quorum one more time.
Trump is due to speak with European leaders, including Volodymyr Zelenskyy, today ahead of Friday\u2019s meeting with Russian president Vladimir Putin. <\/strong>Trump\u2019s press secretary Karoline Leavitt characterised Friday\u2019s meeting between Trump and Putin as a \u201clistening exercise\u201d for the president, confirming that Zelenskyy would not be in attendance, but the president has hopes for a trilateral meeting in the future. For more on the upcoming meeting, follow our Europe live blog here<\/a>.
California governor Gavin Newsom says the state will draw new electoral maps <\/strong>after Trump \u201cmissed\u201d a deadline on Tuesday night in an ongoing redistricting battle between Democratic and Republican states.
The Trump administration is evidently extending its control of cultural representation at the Smithsonian<\/strong>, the world\u2019s largest museum and research complex. In a letter posted on the White House website, the administration told the Smithsonian that it plans a wide review of exhibitions, materials and operations ahead of the US\u2019s 250th anniversary celebrations in 2026.<\/p>\n

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Muriel Bowser urges community members to \u2018protect our autonomy\u2026 and get to the other side of this guy\u2019 amid Trump\u2019s interventionMuriel Bowser last night hardened her stance on Donald Trump using federal agents to police the city, calling the president\u2019s move an \u201cauthoritarian push\u201d.Speaking during a live town hall on social media, the mayor of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":160531,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160530","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160530","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=160530"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160530\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/160531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=160530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=160530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=160530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}