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Gare, the last time that you and I spoke was about 12 hours after Trump announced the takeover of D.C.'s police force.

It had really just happened, so I didn't really have a ton of clarity about how

things were going to be taking shape and what resistance or pushback would look like. Now,

today that we're speaking, Friday, September 12th, it's been a little over about 30 days since

all of this went down. And I feel like we're due for an update from my hometown, the District of Columbia.

What do you say? Absolutely. We're at the deadline so now Trump can no longer do anything. The city's back.

God, I wish. You're free once again. Oh my God, from your lips to God's ears. So I did want to set the stage a little bit up top.

You know, I'm a journalist, but I am also an advocate for DC statehood. First and foremost,

I feel like I need to make sure something is super clear, which is that how entwined all of this

is to DC's lack of statehood. After the last time that you and I spoke

there, a listener said, oh, why is she making this whole thing about statehood? How would D.C. being a state

change anything? How would two more Democratic senators change anything? Why are you making it about that?

And I thought, oops, I did not do a good enough job of making clear why the takeover in D.C. could

happen at all. And the ways that D.C.'s lack of statehood is at the heart of that issue.

This is just sort of the soup that I swim in all day, every day, so I forget that's not true for

everybody. For some of you, this might be a refresher, and you might know this already, but the reason why Trump

started all of this in D.C. is because D.C. is not a state. You know, as president, Trump has a lot more

authority over D.C. than he has over any other place in the country. So while Trump talking about

sending the National Guard into other cities is awful.

He wants to do it to Chicago so bad.

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