JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Let us pivot to a domestic military situation, the National Guard on the streets of Washington.

Scott, you've been covering this all week.

Can you give us a brief overview of why the Trump administration is so eager to put not only National Guard but federal agents across the streets of Washington?

SCOTT MACFARLANE: This is such a significant moment.

There's a tug-of-war underway for control of a major American police department, and there's a lack of clarity for the officers who's in charge.

Put that in perspective.

This is a police department of more than 3,000 people in a community of more than 700,000 people, and it's not quite clear to everybody who's running the show.

The site of military humvees, military members, Guard members, federal agents with masks walking through neighborhood streets in America is jarring to a lot of people.

But it's not a real clear public opinion on this.

It's not your traditional Trump issue.

One group on one side, one group on the other, not your traditional 2025 political issue, I should say.

There are many people with whom we spoke like extra law enforcement in their community.

School is about to reopen.

There's a big issue of crime.

People want to go to work in the store safely.

But this is different.

There's a concern that when Trump gets his fingerprints on a police department, he may not take his hands off of it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: What is his underlying reason for doing this now?

SCOTT MACFARLANE: He's alleging a crime emergency is underway in the District of Columbia.

When pressed on the crime numbers and shown with the D.C. government has released, that there's a 26 percent drop in violent crime from this time last year, he alleges the numbers are rigged or the numbers are cooked, much like he did after the 2020 election or with the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

So, he's alleging there's a crime emergency that this is there to combat.

But for the people of the District of Columbia, who do not mind extra law enforcement, they're concerned, this is heavy handed and this is pernicious and this is not the right response to it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right?

I mean, Zolan, we -- people who know that long history of home rule in D.C. understand that this is a very, very fraught racial issue as well.

This is about giving the people of D.C. the right to self government.

This seems to be a kind of an old -- coming from an old playbook.

Is that fair to say?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes it is.

And I think we, we can say that it also comes from a very Trump-specific playbook too.

We can't just look at the deployment of the National Guard in isolation.

We also have to look at Trump's remarks when he deployed the National Guard and how he described Washington, D.C., and how he described in broad strokes as well the people that are both crime victims and the suspects perpetrating these crimes, how he said that this city needs beautification as well.

These are comments that the present has made about American cities, mostly cities that are led by Democrats, mostly cities that are diverse, multiracial.

Going back to his days as a real estate developer in New York City, where he grew up in a New York City that was rampant with crime, I was talking to various historians in political experts today, one of which said, Trump's vision of American cities has remained this same since the 80s, even though the facts of these cities have changed over time.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Port Apache, the Bronx, remember those movies, the Wanderers?

That's a very 70s, 80s -- SCOTT MACFARLANE: He's using dystopian language of marauding caravans of criminals.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And, by the way, I don't want to downplay, there's a serious crime issue in the District of Columbia, especially in poorer areas, but the question is the militarization of that.

Before you go, I just want you to watch one common, which I found very, very remarkable from Congressman James Comer, who is the chairman of the House Oversight Committee.

This is what he said about military.

REP. JAMES COMER (R-KY): We spend a lot on our military.

Our military has been in many countries around the world for the past two decades, walking the streets trying to reduce crime in other countries.

We need to focus on the big cities in America now, and that's what the president's doing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

VIVIAN SALAMA: Jeff, if this was, you know, something that was rampant or that was really kind of rose to the level in the eyes of D.C. as an emergency, then it would be one thing, but it is not lost on D.C. that the very crimes and a accusations that the president is lobbying against people in D.C. were also what happened during January 6th with regard to the assaults against police officers and other things that were happening that day.

And yet the president pardoned so many of those people who were charged by the Justice Department of those crimes, and yet here we are.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Are you suggesting that there's a bit of racially-tinged hypocrisy going on here?

VIVIAN SALAMA: There, there might be a double standard at play, and that is something that, you know, especially here in the capital, it resonates very much with residents.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Scott, you've covered this issue for a while.

Talk about that January 6th overlay to what's happening here, specifically as it regards the treatment of police officers by Donald Trump's supporters.

SCOTT MACFARLANE: Uniquely relevant, because it's the same community, it's the District of Columbia in both cases.

1,500-plus people were charged with being part of the U.S. Capitol insurrection, about 600 of them with assaulting police with clubs, baseball bats with bears, spray with their bare hands, some carrying guns or knives.

Roughly half of them pleaded guilty or were convicted of assaulting police.

But here's what one council member told me as the week concluded.

The D.C. police officers, included those who were beaten and watched their attackers get pardoned, they had to hear this week that there's new management, and it involves the person who pardoned the attackers.

And that is, to put it mildly, likely a problem for some people.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: David, you've watched politics in this town for a while.

Have you ever seen the city just absorbed the fact that massive numbers of police officers were assaulted by the supporter of the Republican president then pardoned by that Republican president when he comes back to power, and then everybody forgets about it?

DAVID IGNATIUS: People haven't forgotten about it.

The fact we're talking about it with such passion shows -- I mean, I've lived in Washington most of my life.

I've seen home rule rise and fall.

And I have to say, I was proud of our mayor and the lawyers who were representing D.C. both in understanding that they had to accommodate this initially, not -- don't fight it, just deal with it, and then fighting it on legal grounds.

And today they want a modest battle when a judge essentially rewrote the authority that Trump has to -- in having his DEA chief oversee the police.

That's going to be indirect now.

So, I think the district government, you know, in this dreadful moment, did a pretty good job.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Zolan, I'll give the last question to you.

Talk about the politics of this.

Because most voters don't like crime, most voters want law and order, Democrats, Republicans, black, white.

Could this be a winning issue, the deployment of military resources into the cities?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS: One, I think we have to remember, he wanted to do this in the first term and was talked down.

Those people aren't around.

They're now replaced by loyalists that will allow him to do it.

He's already forecasted that he could do -- want to do this in other cities as well.

Crime, yes, is a very, very poignant, you know, moving issue in politics, but do people want the federal government to crack down on them without them getting a choice?

That will be the question moving forward.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, we're going to have to leave it there.

I want to thank our guests for joining me, and I want to thank you at home for watching us.