LISTEN: Bowser Says She’s More Concerned About Dealing With Congress Than Trump

John Matthews
WMAL.com

WASHINGTON — (WMAL) 93 percent of her city’s residents voted for Hillary Clinton, but that’s not stopping D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser from taking a pragmatic view of the city’s future relationship with President Donald Trump.

Speaking on a panel of Democratic mayors in D.C. Tuesday, Bowser says she was quick to request a meeting with the President-elect just after the November election, because she wanted his first impression of the District government to come from within.

“We wanted to be out there in front and not let somebody else shape the conversation of about what Washington is,” said Bowser. ” We have to navigate a new Congress, and we have to navigate new [federal] agency heads and a new ideology, but we have to – in that space – preserve the things that make us D.C.,” she added.

President-elect Trump may soon take over the spotlight in town, but Bowser says her bigger opponent may actually be at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue.

“Our approach is to aggressively advance what D.C. needs, and quite frankly, for Washington, D.C., an emboldened Congress is more of a concern in many ways than a Trump White House,” warned Bowser. Congress still has the final say over city laws, and recently, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), Chairman of the House Oversight Committee, announced he would lead an effort in Congress to repeal the city’s recently-passed Death With Dignity law that makes suicide a legal option for the terminally ill.

Rather than expressing dread at working with the Trump White House, Bowser said the new President may find it easier to work directly with Mayors if he runs into the same kind of roadblocks that Congress put up for President Obama. Bowser noted that Obama worked well with the U.S. Conference of Mayors because it was an easier avenue than Capitol Hill.

On the issue of immigration, Bowser said the city will do all it can to support illegal immigrants, and will point them to legal help where possible.

“These are D.C. residents. They live here, their children are in school, they’re part of the neighborhood – part of the fabric of our city, and you never want them to be scared to reach out to the government,” said Bowser. “It makes everybody less safe.”