host: cash patel was confirmed yesterday. what kind of changes do you think we will see at the fbi? guest: as a catholic, we need to stop the abuse. i shouldn't have been surprised but i was quite scandalized that during the obama or the biden administration, the fbi was spying on catholic parishes. then the fbi came out and lied about it and said it was only one field office and we later found out that it was multiple field offices viewing catholics as extremists, traditionalist ideologues, it's completely unacceptable to spy on christians simply for practicing their faith, the traditional faith of this very country, matter of fact. you also need to stop the abuse with the fbi and doj targeting parents who have legitimate questions about how their children are being educated. particularly, being exposed to

leftist ideology, sexual ideology, that has to be cleared up. selective prosecutions, weaponizing the government to go after political enemies. all the things we are told we should fear from trump that came to pass hunter biden. that will be the first order of business, clean up the abuse before you move forward. host: and you are in favor of letting go january 6 case fbi agents? guest: that was preposterous. not just -- >> if you have questions for the speaker, today, please write them on the cards and pass them to the staff members collecting them around the room. i will ask as many questions as time permits, but i cannot ask what i cannot read, so please make sure that you print legibly. thanks, again. we will get started in just about one minute.

[applause] good morning. welcome to the headliners newsmaker at the national press club, where news happens. i'm the 118th president of the national press club and we are delighted to have with us today the mayor of washington, d.c., the district of columbia, muriel bowser, who last week grabbed headlines with her ambitious plans to redevelop the rfk stadium site and entice the commanders to return to the city limits.

the plan envisions an entertainment district, sports complex, shopping, housing, and revitalized waterfront. imagine the super bowl, beyoncé, even taylor swift mania. world-class cities like ours, she told the crowd, does big things. president trump, sitting blocks away, has said some not so nice things about the city she has led for the past decade, calling it out for filth and decay, with a campaign bow to take over washington, d.c. that would require congress to repeal what is known as the home rule law, in existence since 1973, mike lee of utah and republican representative andy ogles has--introduced a bill called bringing oversight to washington and safety to every resident, which not so coincidentally spells out bowser. earlier this week, "the washington post" reported the trump would issue an executive

order to crackdown on crime and homeless encampments in the city , perhaps his first salvo into a takeover attempt. the city is clearly in for a wild ride, but this is not the mayor's first run around. she has held elective office since 2004 as an advisory neighborhood commissioner and then member of the d.c. council and was elected mayor in 20 15 and is only the second person to be elected in her time as d.c. mayor. she's led to racial injustice protests and the events of january 6. and she says that her best job is just being a mom to her daughter. please give me a war cup -- warm national press club welcome to the mayor of washington, d.c., muriel bowser. [applause] mayor bowser: thank you. mike: thank you for being here. mayor bowser: my pleasure, thank you for having me. i've been in this building a million times, but not this

room. i take that back. mike: well, welcome. mayor bowser: i think i gave my first press conference in this room after winning in 2014. yeah, i did. [laughter] >> fun memories. i wanted to start by talking a little bit about home rule. d.c. has had home rule's 73 and fought hard to win it. in the introduction, trump mentioned many times, including this week, that he wants to take over washington, d.c. can you talk a little bit about why home rule is important and what is the case for keeping it? mayor bowser: well, the case that we make is for d.c. becoming the 51st state. there's been a lot of talk about someplace else becoming the 51st state, but we are going to become the 51st state. what it means is, the discussion we've had about whether a

president or a couple of members of congress can take over our limited self-determination is because we don't enjoy the same rights as american citizens, but we are the same as american citizens. we pay taxes more than most, more per capita than any place in america. we are larger than two of the states. we are literally down the street from congress but have no representation. so, the case that d.c. residence, not to tell you that your question was in the right question, but the question for us is -- how do we maintain a pathway to the 51st state and why not? we are americans, we pay taxes, we go to war, we have all of the responsibilities of citizenship without all the rights. the unfortunate answer is that it has come down to partisanship. we don't regard d.c. being added as the 51st state as a partisan issue.

but it is an issue of how to make our democracy more perfect. so, in talking about home rule, it means basically that we elect local officials, we pass our laws, we have our own budget. there's sometimes a misconception out there in the world. we take care of ourselves and we do so, as i said, and give more to the federal government and we get back. so, making sure that we, that we adhere to the principles that so many believe in, that government should be closest to the people, that is why home rule is important to us. mr. balsamo: trump is expected to sign an executive order to give the federal government more power in d.c. do you think the federal government has the right to do this and do you see this as his first move in an ultimate end game two as he says takeover d.c.? how does d.c. protect itself

from federal encroachment? mayor bowser: there's been a lot of speculation about that, mostly among your colleagues here. but i don't know that that's the case. certainly, the president has executive powers. we have seen that he has issued a lot of executive orders. some are being disputed, some are being argued right now. i think that the approach we have taken with the white house, to identify those things that we share, our shared priorities. the president is very focused on making our nation's capital the most beautiful capital in the world. turns out, that's our focus, too . in washington, d.c., unlike some places, the federal government actually has a role in doing that, an oversized role in doing that. there are some things, like national parks, where you know,

when you are in a city as small as ours, how the national parks operate is a very big deal. there has been the issue of the return of federal employees to in person work. now, we didn't argue for in person work knowing with mass firings, which is going to have an impact, certainly, on americans in all 50 states and in washington, d.c., and the federal government does have a role in public safety in the district, unlike most places, because they are a big part of our criminal justice system, including judges and prosecutors. so, there are things that we can work on together. mr. balsamo: "the post" reported that the executive order would be focused on crime and quality of life issues like graffiti and homeless encampments. after you met with president-elect trump at mar-a-lago, you expressed a willingness to work with the

president on issues of merck -- mutual concern, including beautifying the city. are these the issues that you discussed and can you talk a bit about that? mayor bowser: once again, i can't speak to an executive order that i'm not sure exists or will be issued, so i will say that, but i will say that yeah, we talked about beautification issues and public safety. let me say this about that, what i was able to report to the president was that he, i believed, had the picture in his mind of covid era washington, d.c. that's the washington that he left. we did have some impacts of covid closures on public safety and homelessness. so, i wanted to make it clear that the washington that he has returned to is, is, is coming back from covid era impacts.

i developed a comeback plan, our five-year economic development strategy that has a lot of investments in the downtown, for example. how we bring more residents and activity and vitality to the downtown in the federal workforce is a big part of that. i have always believed that trump viewed washington from the eyes of a developer. that was kind of how we approached him in his first term. turns out, he didn't get that involved in real estate, i think they are more interested in that in this term. so, we are looking for ways that investments can be made in our national parks in underutilized federal buildings with the government as well. mr. balsamo: i wanted to ask you about the federal workforce in just a second, but as you know

we take questions from the audience, so james levinson sent in the following. "in the presidential comments on taking over d.c. government, he cited issues of crime and corruption as to why he needs to step in and yesterday there was an indictment of a deputy director of the lns e. are you worried that there is an underlying corruption problem? mayor bowser: i'm not. this is why i say that. our system worked the way it was supposed to in both of the cases you mentioned. we have, and i actually authored when i was a member of the council, a pretty comprehensive and wide-ranging ethics reform law that allows the council to expel a member of the type of conduct that the indictment indicates. that hadn't been the case 10 years before that. we would have had an official

linger until the criminal justice process had run its course. so, we have very, very high standards for conduct. i am proud to lead an incredible workforce of -- this workforce has stood up for d.c.. during covid. during snowstorms. in january we had three national special security events. two snowstorms. we had an inaugural ceremony that change the thursday before the monday of the inauguration. so, all of these activities were supported by public servants. our public servants, especially our police department, have also led to a historic decrease in crime that we experienced in 2024. the previous year had been a tough year for us, admittedly, and we worked very hard to change what i thought, in some

cases, were covid era policies that went into effect that affected the very fragile balance of a public safety ecosystem in washington. we worked with the council to really reset the laws. in my view, we had to get a better focus on accountability for violent crime. we have been able to do that and we are seeing the impacts of that. so, those are all of our police officers who go to work every single day. our teachers have been incredible. we just got our national report card scores and we see d.c. public schools outpacing urban school districts around the country and those are our teachers who are going into classrooms and really moving kids in reading and math. we are proud of the work of our workforce. having said that, people know that they have to follow the rules and if they don't, there

are very real consequences. mr. balsamo: since pandemic, downtown has been a bit of a ghost town. trump has ordered federal workers back to their offices and at the same time elon musk in the department of government efficiency are eviscerating the federal workforce. what do you see as the impact of these two dueling orders and what has trump told you about his federal workforce plans? to follow up on that, do you have any plans for a sort of revitalization of downtown d.c.? mayor bowser: i think that the president and i are simpatico in a return to the office. the discussion i've had around the region, not just in d.c., is that we need to make the case for why these federal jobs and federal activity are best supported, the infrastructure

here best supports that work. that is what we do. when we talk about the federal government, let me be clear, not all federal workers are in washington, d.c.. they are all over the country. you even heard stories about national parks and cdc workers. these are federal workers across the country. in this region i think we have close to 400,000 federal workers . is that right? close to 600,000 federal workers. about one third of those, a little bit more than a third, are located in washington, d.c. 70,000 of them are d.c. residents of the 703,000 people. so, it is a huge impact to have people's jobs affected. so, our real focus is on making sure we are being supportive of our residents and calling on the

government to not use a chainsaw . figure out which jobs we need and which jobs we don't. that can be done in an orderly way and a humane way. mr. balsamo: let me follow that up with another question from the audience here, "what do you expect the economic impact to be on the d.c. region for the thousands of federal workers losing their jobs right now in terms of things like unemployment rates, the job market, the health care marketplace, and when do you think the wave will hit the system and are you prepared for it? mayor bowser: well, it's beginning to hit the system and i expect that probably next week we are going to start talking to our community in a comprehensive way about what we see the impact as. so far, i think that what we

have seen hit the unemployment system is expected when there is a change of administration. especially when it is a different party. that is what we are seeing right now. we know that over the next months, more and more people will be impacted. now, the thing that we will need the white house and the president's cabinet to do is to work with all of us about how unemployment, with the separations they are making, will work for government workers. mr. balsamo: pivoting a bit to ask about crime in d.c., the police union said that it's at the lowest level in 50 years. three police officers were shot last month, they pointed it out as a risk to an overburdened police force. what efforts are you taking to recruit more officers and how can you be sure that violent

crime doesn't rise if police ranks continue to shrink? mayor bowser: we've put enough officers on the street, but unfortunately we do it in a less than ideal way. that's why if you are a budget wonk like i am, we have higher overtime numbers and is efficient, but we have to do that to make sure we have the shifts and the people on the street that we need. we are, and as long as i have been mayor, we have funded our department at a level that allows us to hire the maximum number of people at a given time . i won't go into the sordid history in the couple of years that we were not able to hire, but with attrition and with a couple of years of disruption, you can see your numbers go down. our plan is to get to 4000 officers. i believe, our police she believes we need to be between

3800 and 4000 officers. keep in mind, we are not just a city. we are a city, county, and state and we support the government and large-scale events, so our force per capita may be bigger than some cities of our size, but that is what we need. mayor bowser: a national press club member, linda, sends in this question, the top criminal prosecutor in the d.c. attorney's office stepped down after refusing to follow the directive from the interim u.s. attorney. are you concerned these conflicts could affect the u.s. attorney's office ability to prosecute crimes committed in washington, d.c.? mayor bowser: i think that, this is what, this is a conversation i had with the president about, again, the u.s. attorney is not elected, not accountable to local officials or taxpayers. so, that is a position that

either comes from the president or the attorney general that appointment. so, it's very important to us that the u.s. attorney focuses on violent criminals, on people who use guns, and on repeat offenders. taking a hard cases to trial. sometimes we see from prosecutors that if it's not a slamdunk, they don't want to proceed. we need to send a strong message that if you use a gun in the district, you are going to jail. we need to have prosecutors who share that sentiment. mr. balsamo: one more question about crime, obviously violent crime in the district of columbia has been down over the last few years, but homicide numbers, which if you look at them this month in comparison, are slightly up. are you concerned about that sort of rise in homicides in

that same sort of vein as you were talking about prosecutions of violent crime? mayor bowser: most anybody who analyzes crime doesn't use one month as an indicator of a trend. so, we are concerned about any crime in any month and driving it down, but i don't know that i would suggest it was indicative of our efforts. what we saw last year was remarkable, because of the really strategic work that our chief of police, pamela smith, has done. one of the tools she has used is a real-time crime center that we put in place down at police headquarters, along with a partnership with the community to get more cameras feeding into this crime center so that we can both use it as a predictive tool but also use it to make quick arrests and support better prosecutions. so, all of that together is

helping. we have another idea we are going to pitch to the president about, because we believe that the camera system works, to help us by crime, especially when we are rebuilding the numbers of people that we have as crime fighters. we think that will be a very important project for downtown washington. mr. balsamo: asking about the rfk stadium site, last week you said you wanted the commanders to make that their new home. why do you think that is the best use of that site and what are you willing to do to entice them to relocate? are we talking about tax breaks? can you just expand on what you are thinking there? mayor bowser: sure, and it was longer than last week that i set it. i've set it for a long time. [laughter] since before i was mayor, i'm sure. for people not familiar, the site is 177 acres and it's on

the banks of the anacostia river . it is the former home of the washington football team. it currently has the former stadium, rfk. we haven't used it in almost 10 years. it is literally dilapidated and falling down. we have begun the demolition. but the rest of the site is asphalt parking lots. so, the district had police with the federal government for rfk. i think we got it in 1988. the lease is going to expire, was going to expire, i think, 2038. so, for us, for the city to really make an investment in the property, we had to have control of it for longer than the next 14 years. so, we have been working to get control over it from the national parks service so that we could make the investments in it. and we finally did that.

it happened at the end of december. so, now we controlled it for the next 99 years. we are either going to have a great development with an nfl stadium or we are going to have a great development without one. why we want the nfl to go there is because this is our team and, as you mentioned, i believe that great cities have, you know, their sports teams, great entertainment. great arts culture. wonderful restaurants. a number one parks system, like us. all of those things we think and happen in our city. it gets a chuckle, but it's true, when the world cup comes to the united states, we can't have it in the capital because there is no menu. we could have the ncaa in the

super bowl, of course, bringing revenue to the city. for us, hospitality and sports entertainment are not just fun and games. they employ d.c. residents with good salaries and contribute to the bottom line. mr. balsamo: with navy yard and in the war, we saw a redevelopment there, increases in rent and housing prices. what will you do at the rfk stadium site to prevent that from happening while still creating what you described, world-class development? mayor bowser: what we have actually seen is that when we build more housing, we have seen less of a steep increase, like half the national average of the last 10 years. that is directly related to the amount of supply that we put in the market for housing. we have created 36,000 new units and we did add of schedule. because we have increased the supply, our rents have been

blunted and rent increases have been blunted to half the national average. we see this, the housing crisis, as a big one for the nation that we have to confront. i am leading a task force right now with the national league of cities to talk about how cities can work with the federal government on these housing issues. even when i started, what it takes to build affordable housing, just across of labor, materials, inflation, it's exploded. for cities to continue to be partners with the private sector , we will have to be innovative and have great federal partnerships. mr. balsamo: what is the maximum seating capacity you're willing to do support? mayor bowser: we have seen some

flexibility there. flexibility works for the team and for economics. stadiums are in the range of 60,000 to 70,000. mr. balsamo: pivoting to follow up on something that you said, it creates more affordable housing and makes it easier for people charged with violent crimes, it's been part of your administration, why did you pick it up? can you explain in terms of reaching your goals? and in terms of what else needs to happen? mayor bowser: sure, we introduced the rental act and i would break it into two buckets. the first is kind of rebalanced policy environment similar to what i said about public safety.

covid because a lot of changes to the law. it helps during the time when people couldn't work and were sick and when businesses were closed. some of those policies and operations have had a tail. so, we have to change the policies. we have to address the kind of operational issues that are keeping people, landlords and tenants, from having the relationship that they had before covid, focusing on the fact that we won't have safe, affordable, well-kept affordable housing if people are not paying the rent. so, in one half of the bill we are addressing the 30% of people that we think are using the system to not pay their rent. having an effect on the 70% of

the people who are doing exactly what they should and what they are contractually obligated to do. that's a part of it. the second part is how do we get back to the type of production that made us number one in the region? in the area or jurisdiction of the country that has invested the most in affordable housing? we have to get back to the level of production that got us a 36,000 units. a part of that is looking at our laws. one of them is around -- we have a law that focuses on allowing renters to be able to buy their units. affordable units. this, we made some tweaks to the law to ensure that tova is focused on affordable housing, housing.

in that financial transactions are not kind of swept up in the law. so, these are some things, this law hasn't been modernized since it was created, and we think it is necessary to do now so that we can be number one again. now, when i was elected 10 years ago, our biggest issue in the city was how do we stay affordable for the people? because we are, we do have a hot economy, people do want to live here, people are starting their businesses here. the thing i always remind people of, even since the most recent census bureau report, the fastest growing state in america was washington, d.c. people vote with their feet. they are moving here, more people live here than before pandemic. the schools came back faster. so, it is important that we

continue to have this be a city that people choose to live in. affordability, housing affordability is like the number one thing on the list. mr. balsamo: i want to ask you a little bit more about the partnership you have with the national league of cities. you announced a new partnership group. can you talk more about the aim of the group and what prompted it? mayor bowser: well, part of it is, and i've done a task force with the league of cities before. it's a bipartisan group made up of executive officials like me, but also members of legislatures , appointed officials, and from cities and towns of all sizes. so, what i find really interesting is that no matter where you are from an america, there is some kind of housing issue in your town. so, having a league that has the

staff and resources to make our case to federal lawmakers is hugely important. so, we can share, and we are using what we learned in our 10 year investment to create 36,000's share, but we also want to learn from our counterparts across the nation about other ways that we can do affordable housing with, you know, in a way where we are not spending as much per unit. so, we have to work on that. we are learning from my cochair. one of the cochairs, for example, is from a university town. university housing has a lot of great institutions and the need to remain competitive. how they do that in part is housing in a market like ours. we are working on that.

and actually to invite more universities to have their east coast outpost to be in washington, d.c. johns hopkins, usc, they both made big investments, and in addition to our great universities. mr. balsamo: family homelessness has decreased, and time count showed that it rose 23 and 24. what specific efforts are you taking to combat the rise in homelessness? is trump right that federal resources are needed? mayor bowser: federal resources can always help. at different points in time it fluctuates. in my tenure, i have had a huge focus on ending family homelessness. we are very proud that a promise

i made to close and notorious shelter in an old hospital would close and we would open humane family shelter across the city, and we did. eight shelters that house no more than 50 families. we were able to decentralize the services, so it allowed the families to get into permanent housing. so, we know that that system works. if we put the people experience ending and emergency into a smaller, better resourced more humane environment, if they can get together, they can move on to permanent housing. we have done that on the family side. we think that we need a similar approach on the single side. what can the federal government do? first of all, a lot of the people that you see on the street are, and we have shelter, unlike a lot of cities. we have shelter. anybody on the street has a

shelter bed if they wanted. so, we have invested in that system and we want to continue to invest in that system to get off the street. here is where we don't think the president's right. the number of people on the street is not vast. it just isn't. anytime you see a city of our size, if there's a park or a place with a number of tents, it's jolting. it's jolting to us. we want people to get off the street. in the same time you mentioned, we cut the number of encampments and tents in the city by half. we know the processes that work to do that. what doesn't usually work this a mass displacement of people, because guess what? they just go someplace else down

the street. part of what we do is try to work with people to get them into a place where they move to shelter or insight to housing. otherwise it is like a lacrimal, we close it down here and have the same issue -- whack a mole, they leave here and go down the street. we have to be smart so that we are not just displacing or moving around a problem. it's another place that the federal government can help, with housing vouchers, especially for veterans. we have had programs like this before. for the vouchers for the veterans, services, we can get almost any veteran into housing. i think that that is in line with the administration's goals. mr. balsamo: i've got a question here from a press club member. are you concerned with sponsors or acts pulling out of world

pride giving the administration's position towards the lgbtq community and do you have concerns about the trump administration impacting world pride? mayor bowser: i am concerned about it. we have seen a sponsor pullout. keep in mind, this is a global event that happens in places around the world. i think it would be helpful to have a statement of support for world pride in the district of columbia. keep in mind, like i said, we are a world-class city. we have beautiful hotels and venues. many of them i'm sure have already been booked. i just, i can't believe that the president would want to send a message to people not to come to the nation's capital. mr. balsamo: can you give us a status update on cedar hill hospital? what's the timeline? mayor bowser: cedar hill is a

hospital that i committed to create 10 years ago to make sure that we had a world-class hospital on the east side of the city. for people who are not as familiar with d.c., we are, part of our city is divided by a river. the other part by rock creek park. you can kind of think of d.c. in three parts. well, the part to the east of the anacostia river did not have a fully functioning hospital with the quality of care that we expected. we believed we had to create a new hospital to get that done. we have a great partnership with deep gw health and their physicians who are going to work there. we built the hospital over the course of the last several years and expect to open april 15. mr. balsamo: can you talk a little bit about, you know, another topic in the news

lately, the president has taken over part of the kennedy center board. can you talk about that? any concerns with what's happening there in the events already happening, the move on the board and the resignations that have happened? mayor bowser: let me first say that david rubenstein is an american treasure, he chaired the board. he contributed a lot of his personal wealth to what he called patriotic philanthropy. everything from support with the washington monument when it was damaged, two important archival pieces at the national arc. i think he even supported bringing our pandas back to the national zoo. you know, hughes, and like he doesn't just, he didn't just operate in that role as chairman

in some kind of a, what should i say, honorific capacity. he worked. he's smart. he built a great company. we've been honored to have his leadership. similarly, deborah rutter has been a great leader of the kennedy center for 11 years. now, it turns out that both of them had already announced they would be moving on. but in a way that allowed for a smooth transition. so, i don't know the current leadership. i was on the board call where mr. grenell was appointed. i look forward to meeting him. i hope that the organization, like they book out a couple of years in advance, so canceling shows is bad for the arts community. it's bad for our reputation in the arts community, locally and around the world. but it's also bad for business.

and like i said, people, you know, it's a local institution but it is america's arts center. people come from around the country to see shows. so, i don't know how we benefit at all from canceling shows and affecting economic development. so, when you say you want to have a beautiful capital, you can't also undercut the ways that we have a beautiful capital. so, we have to support the arts. people probably don't realize this about d.c., but we have the second-highest number of theater seats in america, second only to new york. we have a very active arts scene here. we have wonderful productions. wonderful productions that are for everyone. mr. balsamo: i wanted to ask you a couple of more local questions here. this one from the audience, the housing voucher system is deeply

troubled, landlords are taking financial advantage of this program. what is being done or what will you do about it? mayor bowser: i don't doubt -- i don't know if i would agree with everything said in that question, but i will say this, we have created an intermediary, intermediate step. we had our council funded a couple of years ago, i think, a big number of vouchers in our charge. it was to get them out quickly. we worked on a program that we believed would work. what we discovered was that we can't take a person who was living on the street and just put them in a unit, even with support. people are struggling. so, we recently bought, and this

is our strategy, to look across the city, especially in places where we know we can get people to come inside. it's almost like dormitory housing. shelter housing. it is that step between being homeless and un-housed and may be on the street and going into permanent housing. so, we believe that's the strategy to work. bridge housing, if you will. that's how we want to use it. mr. balsamo: another local question here that comes to us from pat. ronnie clark was killed, christmas eve in northeast d.c., when a driver hit him and fled on foot, leaving him trapped under the car. two months later, there have been no arrests. clark died at the scene. why hasn't there been more of an effort by your office or mpd to get community help to bring the killer to justice? mayor bowser: i will look into

that. i will take that as a note to look into. certainly, our police are very aggressive about investigating traffic incidents, it any other violent crime. so, i will need to be updated on that. mr. balsamo: before i ask the final question, let me take a moment to thank the headliners team member and our club executive. finally, thank you to the audience, i hope you will join us friday, march 28, for career day at the national press club. if you're looking for your next communications job, you will be able to meet reporters. get your headshot and more. and let me present you with our coveted national press club mug. [applause] mayor bowser: thank you. mr. balsamo: i hope you use all

the time. closing with the final question here, two, actually, if you don't mind -- mayor bowser: you ask really fast, so. [laughter] mr. balsamo: got a lot of questions and, very experienced at this. will d.c. take the trump administration to court over executive actions or anything else and how much do you expect the gop congress to be involved in blocking bills through the d.c. council? mayor bowser: i will take the second one first. if you look back at the history of congressional interference, it's almost predictable, the type of issues that congress has interfered in. they are usually social issues that members want to make points on back at home. so, we had a ban on, continue to have a ban on locally supported abortion. we had a ban on cannabis

regulation, which is dangerous, actually. we have had other interference on mostly social issues. the most recent issue being on public safety. you know, that's a longer story, but now there are a lot of bills kind of moving in the congress that we are focused on. usually, we can kind of beat back issues if we work diligently on it. i'm very grateful for the partnership i have with representative comber out of kentucky, our oversight share. so, we work across the aisle, we always have. we worked behind-the-scenes, we work in front of cameras, we are always working for the benefit of the district. but this goes back to your first question, we are always going to experience that until we become the 51st state. it's that simple. so, we work on that. the first part of your question,

will we sue? sue? the bottom line is, we have an attorney general in the district. an elected attorney general that does not, you know, is not my chain of command. we are always talking about making sure that the laws are applied affects the district of columbia. that's what i will say about that. mr. balsamo: mayor, the -- thank you for taking the time. mayor bowser: thank you. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2025] it's >> today, the interior secrar

and others will speak to the national governors association and are exct to discuss energy reliability, resilience, and performing energy products -- project watch it live at 2:30 p.m. eastern on c-span, c-span now, or online at c-span.org. >> american history tv, saturdays on c-span two, exploring the people in the events that tell the american story. this weekend at 2 p.m., a military history professor at the army command and general staff college on the role of african-american soldiers in the union army and their efforts to gain civil liberties. at 7 p.m. eastern, watch the american tv history series first 100 days as we look at the start of presidential terms. this week we look at president