Notice a theme to Trump's planned takeovers of cities? These Black mayors do.
- - Notice a theme to Trump's planned takeovers of cities? These Black mayors do.
Deborah Barfield Berry and Terry Collins, USA TODAYAugust 16, 2025 at 6:01 PM
OAKLAND, California ‒ Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee and other officials in this California city are treating President Donald Trump's warning that he might send the National Guard there as more than just an offhand comment.
They’re bracing for a fight.
Lee and other Black mayors, along with civil rights activists and lawmakers across the country are increasingly concerned about Trump singling out cities like Oakland, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Baltimore and Washington, DC. All of them are led by Black mayors and all of those leaders are Democrats.
“We just can’t help but feel in some kind of way that we're being specifically profiled," said Van R. Johnson, president of the African American Mayors Association and mayor of Savannah, Georgia. “That’s not right. That’s not fair. We want our federal government to work with us. We’re just a phone call away.”
New York Rep. Yvette Clarke, chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus, called Trump's takeover of DC's policing a “blatantly racist and despicable power grab.”
“It won’t stop in Washington, DC," she said in a statement. “The stakes are high not just for Washington, DC, but for the future of democracy in every corner of this country.”
Trump used his presidential powers in early August to take over policing in Washington, DC, complaining crime is rampant and officials haven’t done enough to address it ‒ despite statistics showing crime in the district is at a 30-year-low.
Trump also threatened to deploy the National Guard to help fight crime in other communities.
"We're going to take back our capital," Trump said Aug. 11. "And then we'll look at other cities also."
He called it a "historic action to rescue our nation's capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam and squalor and worse."
President Donald Trump, alongside Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (L), speaks during a news conference to discuss crime in Washington, DC,Different visions for tackling urban problems
White House officials argue the nation's capital is filthy and that Trump has seen that firsthand.
In March, Trump signed an executive order titled "Making the District of Columbia Safe and Beautiful," which sets up a task force of federal officials to clean up the city.
“If Democrats had any common sense, they would follow President Trump’s lead to crack down on violent crime that has plagued our nation’s capital – and Democrat-run cities across the country," Taylor Rogers, White House assistant press secretary, said in an email to USA TODAY. "Instead of criticizing President Trump’s popular, tough-on crime policies, they should focus on cleaning up their own cities which are some of the most dangerous places in America."
Many big cities are run by Democrats, but both violent and property crimes have fallen nationwide in recent years, federal data shows.
Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser, joined by police chief Pamela Smith and fire chief John Donnelly, speaks at a news conference on Aug. 11, 2025, after President Donald Trump announced a federal takeover of the Metropolitan Police Department.
Civil rights leaders criticized Trump for portraying cities, especially those led by Black mayors, as crime ridden.
"Painting a false picture of the city's largest Black-majority cities, led by Black mayors, is part of the Trump administration's ongoing strategy to exploit racial distrust for political gain,’’ Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, and George Lambert, president of the Greater Washington Urban League President, said in a statement.
If Trump really wanted to help cities, several mayors argued, he wouldn't be cutting funding for anti-poverty programs and community policing efforts.
“We need to have this federal government invest in cities like Oakland instead of disinvesting in us,” said Lee, who spent 27 years in Congress, including during Trump's first term. “It doesn’t make any sense what this government is doing if they want to see cities not just survive but thrive.”
More: 'DC has a right to govern itself': Civil rights leaders denounce Trump's takeover move
'Reasonable people can look at the optics'
Trump has yet to publicly bring up race in his criticisms of those cities, but experts point to his history of racially disparaging remarks, including during his first term when he questioned why the United States would let in people from countries like Haiti and parts of Africa, which he referred to using an expletive. Trump also called Baltimore, a predominately Black city, a “disgusting, rat and rodent-infested mess.”
While the president didn't specifically mention race then or in his recent references, it’s clearly implied, said Jason Williams, a professor of Justice Studies at Montclair State University in New Jersey. Williams said urban centers historically have been code for talking about Black people or communities of color.
“He doesn’t necessarily have to say it in order for his base to know what the implications are,” said Williams, adding that most people know DC has a significant Black population. “It does give him some plausible deniability. Not that I think this president would care."
Oakland Mayor Barbara Lee said city and community leaders are united and won't back down to the Trump administration over the president possibly sending in the National Guard to town during a news conference at Oakland City Hall on Aug. 14. 2025.
Oakland's Lee told USA TODAY she finds Trump's actions "fearmongering and diversionary."
"A lot of what he does is to provoke unrest and that gives him an excuse, so we have to be prepared and ready to fight," she said.
Oakland has a contingency plan if Trump tries to send in National Guard, Lee added. When asked if she could provide any details, the mayor replied, “I’m not at liberty to do that right now. That would be inappropriate at this point.”
In DC, Trump justified his actions by citing a recent overnight assault of a former federal official and in Los Angeles, he called in the National Guard to quell civil protests spurred by the aggressive immigration crackdown. He might take advantage of other isolated incidents to target other big cities, said Insha Rahman, vice president of advocacy at the Vera Institute of Justice, a nonprofit organization focused on criminal justice.
"It's the red meat that Trump uses to rile up the MAGA base and it is effective as bait only when it's left unchecked," Rahman said.
'We’ve been here before’
Federal officials have sometimes used their powers to undermine Black urban leadership and portray them as chaotic and incompetent or crime prone, Williams said. He pointed to examples such as the urban renewal of the 1960s and 1970s when federal officials displaced Black neighborhoods with highways and a century earlier, after Reconstruction, when governments dismantled post-Civil War gains.
“We’ve been here before with federal overreach and an attempt to try to roll back hard-won wins," Williams said.
Construction workers start the work to transform Black Lives Matter Plaza into Liberty Plaza on March 10, 2025 in Washington, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser announced the project as part of DC’s America 250 mural project for the celebration of the country’s 250th birthday. As part of the change, the Black Lives Matter mural is being removed from the street.
The nation’s capital has long been in the crosshairs of Trump and GOP congressional leaders. Earlier this year, Republican lawmakers threatened to withhold funds if Bowser didn’t remove a Black Lives Matter mural from a street near the White House.
“DC has always been this sort of political football for the Republicans,” Williams said.
While some Black mayors are concerned about their cities becoming a Trump target, they’re continuing their work to combat crime, Johnson, the Savannah mayor, said.
“We’re worried about fighting our federal government as well as fighting crime," he said. “It’s a continuous 'what if, what next,' which we think are distractions from what the American people are really talking about.”
Johnson said the ideologies and approaches of some Black mayors may be different than Trump’s, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be partners on issues, including crime.
“We understand elections. We’re politicians ourselves," he said. “We’re charged with playing with whoever is on the field. When Donald Trump became president, he became president of our cities too.”
Contributing: Phillip Bailey
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Notice a theme to Trump's takeover of cities? These Black mayors do.
Source: “AOL Politics”
