gotchanewsdaily.com 
Washington
CNN
—
As DC Council members roamed the halls of Congress on Monday, lobbying GOP lawmakers against a federal funding bill that would strip more than $1 billion from the district’s budget, city crews were simultaneously tearing up a road 2 miles away, all in an effort to appease President Donald Trump and his allies.
This week, crews began dismantling Black Lives Matter Plaza, just up the street from the White House, after Republicans in Congress threatened to withhold funding for the district if it kept the two-block mural intact.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser led the effort to build Black Lives Matter Plaza in 2020 after protesters were teargassed along nearby streets by federal officers following the murder of George Floyd. Last week, Bowser announced the plaza’s removal, telling CNN, “we have bigger fish to fry,” citing the looming financial and existential crises her city suddenly faces under Trump.
The move reflects the immense influence Trump wields in his second term, and the fear some local leaders have of antagonizing him as they play defense on multiple fronts.
Along with pushing a spending bill that cuts the city’s budget, Trump and his fellow Republicans have pressured DC leaders on crime, homelessness and immigration enforcement — with the constant threat that the federal government could reassert control over a capital city that has enjoyed a good deal of autonomy in recent decades.
Bowser, a leading figure in the Democratic resistance during the president’s first term, is taking a far less defiant approach this time around. Now in her third term as mayor, Bowser is trying to thread a delicate political needle. But capitulating to the president’s demands could provoke her 700,000 constituents, more than 93% of whom voted against Trump.
The nation’s capital faces a massive budget shortfall as Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency gut the federal workforce, laying off thousands of DC residents and threatening other industries across the region due to the mass job loss. The city could lose more than $1 billion in revenue over the next three years if the terminations continue, according to projections from the city’s chief financial officer.
Bowser said the city will likely ask the White House for federal assistance to lessen the economic blow. She has publicly called on the Trump administration to slow the federal workforce reductions, saying DC needs time to prepare for the fallout.
The mayor has treaded carefully through the first few weeks of Trump’s second term, generally dodging opportunities to publicly criticize the president’s actions. She offered notably muted responses to Trump’s pardoning of January 6, 2021, rioters and two DC police officers convicted in a 2020 death and cover-up.
In late January, the mayor’s office refused to send immigration enforcement guidance to DC Public Schools after receiving it from the district’s attorney general out of concern it would antagonize Trump, according to a source familiar with the issue. Similar guidance was sent to DCPS during Trump’s first term.
Bowser, who met with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida before he took office, has repeatedly said the two share several goals for the district, including public safety, beautification and a push to return workers to the office full time.
But since Inauguration Day, Trump has repeated his attacks on DC and its leadership, threatening to “take over” the city even though he says he and Bowser “get along great.”
Bowser has said she doesn’t expect Trump to follow through on these threats, claiming that the DC he’s describing is based on the community he left in 2021, not where the city stands today.
Trump has already exerted power over the district’s operations, appointing a conservative ally to be DC’s US attorney and ordering the city and Bowser to remove several homeless encampments. But Trump has taken fewer early steps to interfere with the city’s affairs than some expected.
Speaking anonymously to CNN, several local officials praised the delicate dance Bowser has done. But some others have publicly criticized the mayor’s approach to dealing with Trump 2.0.
Responding to the mayor’s decision for BLM Plaza, DC Councilmember Brianne Nadeau posted on X, “history has shown that giving in to bullies emboldens them for bigger attacks. Congress has been threatening to take away our funding since the start of Home Rule 50 years ago. We have always fought back. Let’s not give up the fight before it’s even started.”
Bowser acknowledged the criticisms during a recent town hall with concerned constituents.
“While I recognize that there is frustration, and people want someone to blame or they want somebody to be mad at, I don’t think that’s where we are in DC,” Bowser said. “I think we’re in the place where we’re locking arms. They want us to be smart and strategic and get to the other side. And that’s my job. I’m going to navigate us to the other side.”
The House was set to vote Tuesday on the Republican-authored stopgap funding bill that would treat DC like a federal agency and cut $1.1 billion from the city’s 2025 budget, further threatening funding for social programs, schools and public safety. Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton, who represents the district, called the proposal “the latest blow in an escalating war on DC residents and the limited Home Rule DC currently possesses.”
In her own response, Bowser displayed a more tempered tone, calling the proposal a “$1.1 billion mistake” and saying, “The thing about mistakes is they can be corrected.” Bowser added that the White House has told her the budget proposal did not come from them.
But Christina Henderson, a member of the DC Council, told CNN that while many feel the funding bill is “fairly innocuous,” mandating the district revert to 2024 funding levels would mean a loss of millions of dollars from the budget — money that the district started spending in October to hire additional teachers and police officers.
“You’re asking (DC’s government) to cut teachers in the middle of the school year. … We would have to cut about $67 million from the police department at the same time that they want us to do great things to bring crime down,” she said.
What’s more, Henderson said, district residents, like people across the country, have struggled with rising costs due to inflation.
“The impact is people,” she said. “A lot of people would be hurt.”
CNN’s Chelsea Bailey contributed to this report.
