14th Street in Washington D.C. Is known for its popular bars and restaurants, but on Wednesday night a traffic checkpoint was drawing crowds. Crowds of protesters. This was a mix of DC police and federal law enforcement. They were stopping cars, some agents were covering their faces.

Take your mask off, coward!

A commander with the DC police said the operation was routine, but longtime residents told CNN's Brian Todd they had never seen anything like it.

One of the commanders told me this is no different than something they do every couple of weeks.

Hell no! I've lived here for 17 years off of this street, and this has never happened.

Ever since President Donald Trump deployed hundreds of National Guard troops and took control of the city's police force, the impacts have been felt all over the city. From train stations, to homeless encampments, to the Washington Monument, all in the name of fighting violent crime. But will the crackdown actually make the city safer, and was there even a crime emergency to begin with. My guest is Trevor Gardner. He's the vice dean of research and faculty development and a professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis. He's going to explain what the crime stats really show and what Trump might be up to as he exerts his will all over the nation's capital. From CNN, this is one thing. I'm David Rind. We're back in a bit. Professor Garner, can you just explain why President Trump has the power to take over a local police department?

So the president does have that power in Washington D.C. And he has a power based on the Home Rule Act and that's an act enacted by Congress and the act among other things, gives the president permission to take control of the D. C. Police Department for federal purposes for a 30 day period. And so the important thing to know about the Home Rule Act is that it's an act specific to DC, different from other cities and states.

So when we hear about Trump saying other cities should be watching this to see how this goes, it wouldn't necessarily operate in the same exact way as it is right now in DC if this were to spread elsewhere.

That's exactly right. If you want to think about Trump's authority in, say, a city like Chicago, he would have the authority to send in the FBI, whatever that might look like. He might send in a number of agents. He might be talking about hundreds of agents, the FBI has no restrictions. They can operate anywhere in the country. But the Constitution strictly forbids the president from taking over municipal and state. Institutions, such as a police department. So DC's a really nice, I say nice in quotes, it's a nice setting for him to the extent that he wants to show more federal power and authority over a city, over an urban environment, right? So he can take over the local police department without much justification. He can also deploy the DC National Guard to assist with law enforcement activity in the area. But he doesn't have the same authority to deploy the National Guard for whatever reason in other states, right? So we're talking about, for example, his deployment of the National guard in California without the authority of the governor. You know, he had to establish that this was something along the lines of an emergency situation, right. So you have that higher threshold.

And that's actively being litigated in court right now.

It is. So it's a question of whether there was a bonafide emergency in California that would justify his activation of the California National Guard. However, in DC, as long as he's deploying the National Guard for federal purposes, he's legally allowed to do so. And so his power in the city of DC is much different than it is in other cities across the country.

'There's been a lot of talk about what the data actually says about crime in DC. According to numbers from its own police department, there was a spike in violent crime in 2023, but it declined in 2024 and has declined again this year. Crime data expert Jeff Asher wrote that the city's reported violent crime rate is more or less as low now as it has been since the 1960s. But I do recognize that crime is a very real problem in many cities all over the country. And in DC, in fact, there have been 100 homicides this year alone. So that is, no doubt, unsettling for people. And I recognize that sometimes the psychological impact of high-profile incidents can sort of rise past the hard numbers. Not everybody is digging into crime stats. So could this move not be a good thing to just have more bodies out there as a deterrent for a criminal?

It's possible. What I will say is that, you know, I have my doubts and I have my doubts mainly because the city, as you mentioned, is already in a really good place in terms of its rate of violent crime and its homicide rate as well. And, you know, one can see how the introduction of these National Guard and FBI agents might serve as a provocation for local residents. And so you're left to wonder whether that provocation is gonna result in more conflict, you know, more problematic engagement with law enforcement agents on the street, and therefore maybe more crime involving law enforcement personnel.

Right, we already saw somebody throw a sandwich at federal law enforcement the other day. He's been charged with a felony, and apparently he worked for the DOJ and has since been fired. So, I mean, that's one kind of odd incident, but you're saying that protesters might be more likely to kind of push back against this.

'Yeah, I think there's a distinct chance. So I can't say that there's no possibility at all that this would result in lower crime, but you just wonder how that would happen given that there is really a 30-day time horizon to the takeover of the D.C. Police Department. I mean, the other thing worth mentioning is that I can assure you that national guardsmen and FBI agents, these are members of an elite law enforcement organization. They didn't sign up to be traffic cops. They didn't set up with these elite organizations with the expectation that they would get a ham sandwich or whatever it is thrown at their chest, right? And so the whole thing just comes across as sort of chaotic and strange. I don't think these agents are really happy with this particular set of circumstances. Of course they can't say that, but I'll take a moment to say that for them.

What does history say about when the federal government tries to exert pressure on state and local police? Like are there past examples of this succeeding or failing?

This sort of move by the federal government frequently fails. And it fails because from the outset, from the founding of the country, the citizenry has been very skeptical of federal agents policing their streets, right? Main street has always been concerned about the federal Government taking charge of police departments or police responsibilities. And so you might ask why, You know, why is this, why has there been a norm against? Federal agents policing American streets, and I would say it's largely because Policing is probably the most intimate form of federal government power by that. I mean You know, it's the power that I Think is most affecting rights one where the government can lawfully use physical violence Against residents and so, you know local communities want to maintain tight control over that power And they often recoil at the notion that some distant government, for example, the federal government, is going to control that power in their streets, right? They want to maintain control over police such that that power is used in an effective and responsible manner.

Because they're like, this big federal government doesn't really know what's happening on our streets like the way our police do, and we wanna make sure we have some kind of back and forth with what they are and aren't allowed to do.

Precisely. So, let's say we observe something similar in the city of Chicago. An FBI agent engages in, let say, a police stop on the street. The person subject to the stop feels as though they're being harassed, feels as though excessive force is used. Who do they go to, right? Who do the go to to protest this sort of abuse of authority? If we're talking about an everyday police officer, you can go to the local police department. Maybe you have some connections there. You can go your city councilman. You can sort of run this up the flagpole in a way that's relatively efficient. Talking about an FBI agent, who's principally stationed in Washington, DC, that process becomes much more difficult, right? The process of seeking accountability. And so those are sort of the, you know, accountability I think is the core principle we want to focus on here.

We'll be right back.

Our capital city has been overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of wild youth, drugged out maniacs and homeless people, and we're not going to let it happen anymore. We're not gonna take it.

I'm also curious about the rationale for this, because Trump has cited this incident where a former Doge staffer was assaulted and attempted carjacking as a big reason. But he's also generally talked about beautifying the city, that it's run down and dirty.

Washington beautiful we're gonna redo roads we're going to my colleague

My colleague Adam Kankran reported that Trump's personal observations of homelessness also played a part in the decision.

We're going to take all the graffiti off. We're gonna have to remove the tents. And the people that are living in our parks, we're gonna be redoing.

But even beyond law and order, he's also exerted power over DC institutions like the Smithsonian Museums and the Kennedy Center. What do you think he might be trying to get at, do you thing, by putting his stamp on the nation's capital in this way?

Well, I mean, I'll start by saying the obvious, right? President Trump has demonstrated authoritarian impulses. You know, that's sort of a fancy way of saying, you know, he likes to control the things around him in his immediate environment. So I think that's a sort of superficial read. I mean for me, as somebody who studies crime and punishment, the deeper read is that President Trump is fixated on urban crimes. Generally speaking, these urban crimes. Involve minorities, minority young people. You can see that anytime there's sort of a sensational urban crime and a video recording of that urban crime, his administration sort of moves to the edge of their seat and they take very sort of swift and dramatic action. And so I think there's a racial undercurrent here. He talks not only about dirty cities and chaotic cities, cities that are subject to carnage. She also talks about of failed democratic mayors, and he's talking about black political leaders in many instances. And so, DC is really a perfect site for this sort of politics. You have a black mayor, right? You have city that's historically black. You have instances of urban crime, which we see across the globe. And then you have a president with unfettered authority, governing authority, in this particular space, as I mentioned before. And so I think this is sort of the perfect setup for Trumpian law enforcement politics, Trumpian Law and Order politics.

You wrote a paper in 2021 called Law and Order as the Foundational Paradox of the Trump Presidency. Can you explain what you meant by that?

Sure. Apologies for the funky title, but the papers essentially goes back to Trump's opening press conference. The opening press conference for his first presidential campaign where he talked about the rapists and murderers entering the country from south of the border. And then he talked urban carnage in the form of criminal offending, violent criminal funding in our city streets. And so much of it, and this is not a novel observation, much of his campaign was based on the idea that he was gonna bring law and order to the country. You know, at the same time, if you look closely at federal criminal enforcement over the course of his administration, I mean, you had several, if not dozens, of criminal. Investigations of his administration and the people sort of orbiting his administration and his campaign. You had any number of criminal convictions that resulted in jail time and so how do we square that?

And you have an administration that pardoned hundreds of January 6 rioters who attacked the Capitol and assaulted law enforcement.

Absolutely. I think that's a really important note as well. And one thing I'll say there is that, when we hear law and order, law and order, a lot of the country believes that Trump is advocating and pursuing law and orders in the country. But how do you square that, as you mentioned, with the broad pardoning of individuals involved in the J6 attacks on the Capitol? How do you score that with the attacks on police officers? And I think there's a simple way to do that. Think about Trumpian law and order as holding the premise of law and order as it relates to racial minority communities.

I've instructed them and told them whatever happens, you know, they love to spit in the face of the police as the police are standing up there.

'Think about the J-6 pardons as a form of justice, right? Justice for law enforcement overextending itself, right, law enforcement being too aggressive, right. That's the paradigm that Trumpian law and order has us operating in.

And they're standing there and people are spitting in their face and they are not allowed to do anything, but now they are allowed to do whatever the hell they want.

On the one hand, we have this notion of law and order, but we have to look at law and order under Trump in practice. And in practice, it almost always pertains to his political enemies and racial minority groups. And it doesn't also extend to the white population.

It sounds like that gets at something really systemic within America writ large.

'Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, there are some sort of cultural themes here that are rooted in American history. You know, I don't want to oversimplify what's happening. I mean there are many, and I don't want to be reductive and say that this is narrowly about race. I mean it's about a lot of things, but I think law and order under the Trump administration is racially coded. And I think to the extent that you adopt that lens. His long-order actions both in DC and around the country make a lot more sense.

Well, Professor Garner, I really appreciate the time. Thank you. Thank you, thanks so much. Late Thursday, the Trump administration further tightened its grip on Washington, D.C.

They're trying to protect criminal aliens, and what's going to happen if we keep this up? Criminals are going to flee to D.C. And we're not going to let that happen. You must comply.

Attorney General Pam Bondi ordered an end to the city's sanctuary city policies and told the police department it must accept Terry Cole, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, as the district's emergency police commissioner. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser immediately pushed back on social media saying, quote, "'There is no statute that conveys "'the district's personnel authority "'to a federal official,' "'and insisted they have followed the law.'" D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwab called Bondi's order unlawful and told police chief Pamela Smith that she is not legally obligated to follow it. And on Friday morning, he filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its order. That's all for us today. We'll be back on Wednesday. Make sure you're following the show wherever you listen so you don't miss a new episode. I'll talk to you later.