President Donald Trump urged U.S. states to reopen after corona virus related lock downs.
City’s guarded pace to reopen at odds with White House
WASHINGTON — District of Columbia Mayor Muriel Bowser’s cellphone rang last week from an unfamiliar number: It was the White House calling to say President Donald Trump wanted to talk.
Trump congratulated Washington’s mayor on $876 million in federal coronavirus relief going to the Washington-area Metro system — money that was welcome but not under the mayor’s jurisdiction, instead going to a regional transportation authority.
Bowser used the moment to remind Trump that the District — a city of 700,000 people that includes more than 150,000 federal workers— got $700 million less in coronavirus relief money than each of the 50 states because it was classified as a territory at Senate Republicans’ insistence in the first round of federal relief passed by Congress.
As a candidate, Trump spoke warmly of the nation’s capital and said he wanted “whatever is best” for its residents. But over the course of his more than three years in office a disconnect between the president and District of Columbia has emerged. The public differences have only become more stark during the pandemic.
“It is very important that the District is made whole, and that the District gets what it’s owed,” Bowser said after her talk with Trump.
Aides to the mayor said Trump told Bowser her concerns were on his radar, but he made no commitments.
The pace of reopening after the coronavirus threat shut down activity around the nation also has been a point of contention between Washington and the White House.
While the Trump administration has been pushing state and local governments to speed up reopening, Bowser insisted until recently that local infection numbers didn’t justify any relaxation of her stay-athome order.
The District is easing its stay-at-home order this week, one of the last jurisdictions to begin reopening.
But city and public health officials warn that the nation’s capital will likely take months to fully come back to life.
City officials said it remains unclear if students will be able to return to classrooms in the fall. The guarded approach stands in contrast with comments from Trump, who on Friday demanded that state and local leaders allow houses of worship to reopen “right now.”
Hours earlier, Bowser stressed it was crucial for residents to remain vigilant. Houses of worship will be allowed to hold gatherings of up to 10 people in the District’s first phase of the reopening.
“There is a disconnect,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, the District’s nonvoting delegate in the U.S. House. “The White House is looking at the economy and the money, and the mayor is looking at the science first.”
Bowser acknowledges the different approaches, but plays down any conflict with the Oval Office.
She stresses the city’s reopening plan is based in part on White House task force guidelines and Washington has consulted with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease expert.
It wasn’t too long ago that Trump courted city leaders.
In 2014, as his company was developing a hotel at the historic Old Post Office building leased from the federal government, Trump donated $5,000 to Bowser’s DC Proud Inaugural Committee. Two of Trump’s children — Ivanka and Eric — gave $2,000 each to the mayor’s campaign after she defeated the city’s incumbent mayor in the primary that year.
After emerging as the GOP frontrunner in 2016, Trump said in a “Meet the Press” interview that he’d
“certainly look at” a decades-long push by District leaders to gain statehood.
But earlier this month, Trump told the New York Post, “D.C. will never be a state.”
“Why? So we can have two more Democratic — Democrat senators and five more congressmen?” added Trump, alluding to the city’s history of voting for Democrats.
Neither has Trump embraced life in Washington like some of his recent predecessors.
Trump’s outings in the area have centered on dinners at his own hotel and trips to his golf club in
Northern Virginia.
Democrats and District activists also complain that the Trump administration has yet to reimburse the city for more than $7 million in security costs related to the 2017 inauguration and additional costs for Trump’s bulked-up Fourth of July celebration in Washington.
“Whether it’s not paying for the inauguration or his Fourth of July event to shorting D.C. residents in coronavirus relief, he’s been clear in his attitude,” said Bo Shuff, executive director of the statehood advocacy group DC Vote. “He just doesn’t care about the people of D.C.”