District leaders are bracing for the possibility that former President Donald Trump will win the 2024 election and follow through on his threats to take control of the District away from the mayor and council.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton, a staunch Democrat and supporter of President Joe Biden, told News4 she believes it's likely that Trump will win — a comment that got a lot of attention on social media.
"It's pretty clear he's going to be elected," she told News4 on Tuesday.
Here's her full responses when asked why she thinks that — and whether she still thinks Biden is the best candidate to lead the Democratic party.
Reporter: "Why do you say that it's it's clear to you that Trump will be elected?"
Holmes Norton: "I was looking at the polls which show that he is, he's ahead of Biden by several points, more than enough at this point to get elected. It could still, it could change. But that's where we are now. So we can't afford to to assume everything's going to go well for us."
Reporter: "Do you have any opinion on whether President Biden should withdraw from the from the race?"
Holmes Norton: "I think he's doing exactly the right thing, to stay stay hunkered down in the race. The race isn't over yet. When people take a look at, a closer look at Trump, we could still — he could still prevail. So he is being very steadfast, and the Democrats are mostly behind him."
As News4 reported Tuesday, multiple sources say Mayor Muriel Bowser's team is bracing for a second Trump term that makes good on his threats to "take over" D.C.
Any president of the United States has enormous power when it comes to D.C. because it's not a state. The president can take over the police department and many of the powers of the mayor and the D.C. Council.
There are concerns that a second Trump administration, particularly with a Republican-controlled House and Senate, could affect local laws on everything from abortion to traffic cameras.
Bowser is taking those threats seriously and is preparing for how the District could be affected by a Trump win, multiple sources told News4.
Trump has already made D.C. – where residents have overwhelmingly voted for Democrats – a target in his reelection campaign. The most recent of those remarks came last week in Florida.
"We will take over the horribly run capital of our nation in Washington, D.C., and clean it up, renovate it and rebuild our capital city so there is no longer a nightmare of murder and crime," Trump said. "But, rather, it will become the most beautiful capital anywhere in the world. Right now, if you leave Florida – let's go, darling. Let's look at the Jefferson Memorial, let's look at the Washington Monument. Let's go and look at some of the beautiful scenes, and you end up getting shot, mugged, raped."
Trump continued: "We're going to take over our capital, and we're going to run it tough and smart, and we're going to beautify it. We're going to get all the graffiti off the marble. We're going to fix the roads and the median, which are falling down all over the streets. We're going to make our capital beautiful again."
While the Jefferson Memorial and other monuments have been targeted with graffiti in the past, according to D.C. police data, there have been no rapes, muggings or shootings at the memorial in the past few years.
