Coronavirus Report: The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Muriel Bowser

The Hill’s Steve Clemons interviews Washington, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser. Read excerpts from the interview below.

{mosads}Clemons: I’ve been watching what you’ve been doing and there have been so many storms hitting not only the national but this city at the same time. How do you keep your balance? What’s your North Star right now?
Bowser: Our North Star continues to be to manage the district through these crises, to be able to invest in and uphold our values, Steve. So we need to make sure these crises don’t change our core values but actually help us focus on them and come out on the other side of this pandemic in a better place. 

Clemons: Homelessness and affordable housing and changing that equation has been important. What you’ve been able to do while this crisis was going on?

Bowser: We are a city that is booming, attracting residents and businesses, and pre-pandemic, I think our number one issue was how to make D.C. more affordable for more people. When you have people that want to live in your town, start businesses in your town, one of the biggest problems that you’ll have is housing prices going through the roof. And that’s what we have been experiencing in D.C. for the past 15 years. So we have attacked it and we’ve put D.C. taxpayer money behind it. And we’re going to continue to do that. But I think what you see now, not just in D.C., but in jurisdictions all over the country that forcing your economy into a shut down, putting it into a coma to deal with the health pandemic has created for us $1.2 billion of revenue losses for this year and next year. So we’ve had to balance the budget in that way. So all of the things we would have been able to do, pre-pandemic, to make our investment in housing even more robust — we’re being more creative about how to get the same things done.

Clemons: When it comes to the District of Columbia, has the federal government been friend or foe during these times?

Bowser: It’s been both. I think that you can see that a lot of the professionals who are working in the agencies, even some of the Cabinet members and the agencies have been doing their job, but you know they are part of a political organization. I think that somewhat the political decisions that have been made have been very dangerous for our nation and certainly for us. Just to give you a good example, we’ve worked hand in hand with the Army Corp of Engineers and FEMA to set up alternative care facilities in record time. Where a notable and very big example of the federal government not being partner with us, and I don’t know the genesis of this, but we were shorted in state-level funding, which we always get, in the federal CARES Act to the tune of $750 million dollars. We will continue to work very hard with the Congress and the administration to have that $750 million replaced.

Clemons: Can you take us into the clearing of Lafayette Square and tell us what happened and how you managed the D.C. Police side of that when you so clearly had an action against peaceful protesters in your city.

Bowser: I know what happened based on what I saw and what has been reported. And I think that there’s certainly probably more that will be revealed. But it appears to me that on the command of the attorney general of the United States, protesters were cleared in front of Lafayette Square by police officers or other federal officers that were under the command of the attorney general of the United States so that the president could walk across the street, to the church, to take a picture. … I think that our nation was assaulted. We believe in peaceful protest in our country, protected by our Constitution. And more than that, we believe in the autonomy of local jurisdictions. More than that, we believe that police officers should be identified, and we don’t believe that the United States military should be used in local policing matters. There was not just the people there certainly who we’re concerned about but we think the rule of law and the tenants of our democracy were assaulted that day. I’m speaking very colloquially, from our point of view, we saw federal officers advance on Washington, D.C. This could not have happened easily in any state in America. The only reason that this encroachment on our streets, and our economy and our people and that this was able to happen is that we lake statehood. And that is one reason I think so many people have been awoken to the unfairness and the problem of our democracy in that 700,000 people in the nation’s capitol, the only residents of the capital city in the free world who are not represented in their legislature — and it has to change.

Clemons: So what is the strategy for that? What is the next step to try to move that forward? To look at how you get a legitimate place as a state in the legislative branch of government?

Bowser: We should look back at how far we’ve come. Statehood and fighting for statehood is not a new movement. But certainly in the last five years, I think we have made tremendous progress. In 2016, we had a new strategy that we advance a new focus on D.C. statehood. What I think a lot of people don’t realize, people forget their history, but that there were 13 colonies, and then every other state that has been admitted to the Union has been admitted by a simple vote of the Congress of the United States. So you become a state by the Congress voting for you to become a state. People also misunderstand how in part of the constitutional requirement for a federal district there is a maximum size that’s required for the nation’s capitol. In our bill that sits in the Congress now, outlines a federal district. There would still be a nation’s capital with all the federal buildings, the Washington Mall and monuments and the seat of the federal government — but the balance of the current District of Columbia will become the 51st state, Washington, Douglass Commonwealth. And what we know is that we have secured more sponsors in the House and more sponsors in the Senate than ever before. We also secured the support of our delegation, the Democrats of Maryland and Virginia, who have previously not supported statehood for D.C. but now support statehood for D.C., including two very prominent, a son and daughter of Maryland, that would be the Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and the Majority Leader Steny Hoyer. This is very important, and we’ve never before had those things. The last thing we’ve never had is a vote — 232 supporters in the House for statehood for Washington, D.C. All of us know how a bill becomes a low, knows that the law has to go to the Senate. The president I think made a bold statement which he hasn’t done on a lot of things that are important coming out against the bill, saying he would veto it.  Leader McConnell said he wouldn’t even bring it up for a vote. So we know that we have to change the Senate and change the White House, and we will be ready with a new constitutional up vote in the House. Our parameters for the new state are already laid out. And we are ready to be admitted to the Union.

Clemons: What do you need to make D.C. continue to be a success story and not follow in the track of those people that are being hit by a second wave of the first hit of this virus?

Bowser: Well let me first just say how proud I am of D.C. residents and businesses who have heeded the warnings of our health professionals and have followed our guidance. I’m always kind shocked, in fact, at how well people are adjusting their lives and their businesses, at great personal cost, people have lost their jobs, businesses have been shuttered, but people recognize and believe the science that we have to do all that we can collectively together to get on the other side of this and get back to normal as soon as possible. One of the big pieces of evidence that we have lately that people are listening — we love the Fourth of July in Washington D.C., we love to celebrate the country’s birth, we have a big national display, but all of that is hard to do in the middle of a pandemic. I asked D.C. residents to stay at home on the Fourth of July, and that’s not something I would do lightly because I know it’s a great time of family celebration. I was concerned about the celebration on the National Mall. I was also concerned about people going to backyard picnics where we know the virus spreads. What we saw on the Fourth of July, when we looked at the ridership of our D.C. metro, we saw about 10 percent of the people using the Metro to come down to the mall than we had seen the previous year. So that told me that people are going to continue to do individually what it takes to keep our community collectively healthier. But we all have to be concerned, because there is no cure and there is no vaccine, and until we have both of those things, or at least one of those things, I think getting our economy back to normal is going to be hard.

Clemons: How do you deal with the president attacking you on Twitter?

Bowser: You know, I have a rule, Steve, I’ve been in politics long enough, is I never let anybody get away with saying something that’s not true about me or about our city. And you never want to be in a fight with somebody whose — I’m trying not to use harsh language — you don’t want to get in a fight with a fool, because sometimes people won’t be able to tell the two of you apart. It’s an old saying and it’s very true, but at the same time you have to defend yourself and you have to defend your town. And that’s what we’ve done. The thing I’ve noticed about this president is that, like most bullies, is that if you punch back and you punch back hard, they back down.