AMY GOODMAN: Tennessee has become the sixth Republican state to agree to send National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., to assist President Trump’s growing takeover of the nation’s capital. The Republican governors of Louisiana, Ohio, South Carolina, West Virginia and Mississippi are also sending National Guard troops. Many of the troops arrived Tuesday. The Republican governors deployed the National Guard even though many of the states have cities with worse crime rates than D.C. This comes as the online news outlet The Handbasket reports D.C. National Guard members have begun actively training to carry pistols on the streets of D.C.

President Trump sent in the National Guard last week after claiming D.C. is facing a “crime emergency,” even though records show violent crime in the district is at a 30-year low. In January, the U.S. Attorney’s Office of the District of Columbia put out a press release headlined “Violent Crime in D.C. Hits 30 Year Low.” But President Trump has questioned the numbers, and now federal prosecutors have launched a criminal investigation into whether D.C. police manipulated data to make crime rates appear lower. The DOJ probe will be run out of the office of Trump’s hand-picked interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, former Fox News personality Jeanine Pirro.

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reports a new poll found 80% of D.C. residents oppose Trump’s executive order to federalize D.C.’s law enforcement. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser has accused Trump of engaging in an authoritarian push by deploying the National Guard. This is Mayor Bowser speaking Monday.

MAYOR MURIEL BOWSER: The numbers on the ground in the district don’t support a thousand people from other states coming to Washington, D.C. You know that. … This is not about something that is — fits into logic. So, if you want to know what’s happening, the question is really not for us, it’s for why the military would be deployed in an American city to police Americans. That’s the question.

AMY GOODMAN: Community organizers have rallied against Trump’s deployment of the National Guard. This is Samantha Davis, the founder of the Black Swan Academy, which helps empower Black youth.

SAMANTHA DAVIS: This is not about crime; this is about control. This is not about public safety; this is about power. Last week, Donald Trump suggested that our children in D.C., as young as 14, should be tried as adults. Let me ask you: Do we want that?

AUDIENCE: No!

SAMANTHA DAVIS: And Trump’s U.S. attorney has said that she wants to come after our youth, and was frustrated because “I can’t get my hands on them.” Do we want that?

AUDIENCE: No!

SAMANTHA DAVIS: Trump threatened that if D.C. didn’t start punishing our children more harshly, then he would federalize our city. Do we want that?

AUDIENCE: No!

SAMANTHA DAVIS: Trump will not bully us into preying on our children. We will not sacrifice our children to a tyrant.

AMY GOODMAN: We go now to D.C., where we’re joined by Keya Chatterjee, the executive director of the group Free DC.

Keya, welcome to Democracy Now! These, the number of troops that have been deployed, can you give us an update? We know six Republican-led states have agreed to send troops. And as NPR reported this morning, in a number of cities in these six Republican-led states, the crime rates are worse than Washington, D.C.

KEYA CHATTERJEE: That’s right. Thank you so much for having me.

What we’re seeing here is something that would be considered an act of civil war if D.C. were a state, if we had equal representation under the law. There’s National Guard coming from one state to another state against the wishes of the elected officials and of the people who are here. So, this is clearly straight out of the playbook of any dictator. They want to take over the capital of the country in order to silence dissent.

And we actually are very vulnerable to that here in D.C., because we don’t have statehood. We don’t have equal representation under the law. We don’t control — our elected officials don’t control our own National Guard.

These are vulnerabilities that are not just vulnerabilities for the people of D.C., but these are vulnerabilities to the people of this country and our democracy, and therefore, vulnerabilities to the entire world, that is being put at risk by these — by this takeover of D.C., this armed takeover of D.C., that is combined also with this surge of Trump’s forces that are, you know, doing a lot of the same things that we’re hearing about in the rest of the country in terms of kidnapping people, you know. And we’re seeing a lot of illegal activity here, too. We’re seeing illegal checkpoints. We’re seeing, you know, racial discrimination. We’re seeing illegal stop-and-frisk. I mean, that’s touching people’s genitals without their consent. What we’re seeing is lawlessness, but it’s all coming from the White House.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: How is it manifesting itself on the ground right now in the daily life of D.C. residents?

KEYA CHATTERJEE: Well, people are both, very rightly, you know, taking precautions, walking in pairs, letting people know when they’re leaving places, because sometimes we’re seeing, you know, people going to work and getting snatched up, put in chains. And because these — you know, these gangs of Trump’s federal agents are often unlabeled, they’re often wearing masks, we don’t know who’s taking them sometimes. Family members don’t know where their loved ones have been taken.

But we’re also seeing a sense of defiance in the people of D.C. I think people in D.C. do understand that we have to protect our community, and that also, ultimately, we as a broader community in D.C., but also we’re going to need allies all throughout the country and the world, in order to do what people have done as they rise up against dictators all over the world, ultimately take them down by banding together and not cooperating.

And so, I think, in D.C., we have both a sense of defiance, but — and a leaning into all the things that make D.C. so beautiful, right? Like leaning into our neighborhood culture, loving our neighbors, you know, listening to go-go music on the streets. We have people, you know, banging pots and pans every night at 8 p.m. to represent the eight wards of D.C. These are called cacerolazos. They’re tried and — you know, this is a tried and tested tool of taking down dictators by showing a sense of joy, showing a sense of community. And so, what we’re seeing is a lot of defiance, a lot of pride in D.C. culture, a very clear sense that we, the people, are going to have to keep ourselves safe and take this down.

But also, you know, it is — it is a lot of brutality that we are experiencing and that our communities are experiencing, and we want these forces gone now. We want them out of our communities. D.C. is united in this. We do not want them here. We want them gone today. And so, you know, we have this — we have this bill in front of Congress that we’re asking our allies around the country to support. They can go to FreeDCProject.org/allies or FreeDCProject.org/occupation. If you’re from any of those states that are sending guards here, that is dangerous not only for us, but, of course, also for those states where those guards are not available, you know, in the middle of a climate crisis during hurricane season in states that are extremely vulnerable.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: I wanted to ask you also your reaction to this report by The Washington Post that the Justice Department is now going to launch an investigation into whether city officials manipulated data to make crime rates appear to be lower, and how you feel your mayor, Muriel Bowser, is responding to this occupation.

KEYA CHATTERJEE: Our elected officials are following the law, and that is exactly what we are not seeing from the White House. That is where the criminal element is coming from. And so, we understand that dictators want to make up their own numbers, want to make up their own truth. We saw this with, you know, labor statistics. We’re now seeing it with other statistics. Like, this is all out of a playbook. In some ways, it’s very predictable. But it’s also very well known what people do and the people power that can come together to take down this kind of dictatorship.

AMY GOODMAN: Keya, I’m wondering if you can comment on the $1 billion that Congress has withheld from Washington, D.C., what that means, and where money is being spent.

KEYA CHATTERJEE: Yes. So, $1.1 billion of D.C. local funds — so that is our locally raised funds — were frozen by Congress. I will say that we had a unique moment when this money was frozen, where all of the senators in the U.S. Senate voted to give these resources back, but then it got stuck in the House of Representatives, and they never voted to give our money back.

You know, obviously, if they want D.C. to be safe, then they would allow us to fund housing, food, education, all of the things that we know reduce crime rates. And, you know, as I said earlier, if you want to keep D.C. safe, you do the opposite of what this regime is doing. You stop mass firings. You make sure you’re funding healthcare, education, food. Those are the things that enhance safety and having a sense of community.

And so, we do also continue to demand the release of our local funds and allowing us to spend those money — those resources here in D.C., where, again, we raised these resources locally. There’s no other place in this country where the federal government can come in and steal local tax dollars, freeze local tax dollars.

And so, I think it is important for people to understand why this is an important moment for people to care about a free D.C., to care about statehood for the people of D.C., and to actually give us, for once, equal representation under the law, because the reason we don’t have it is a legacy of slavery and a legacy of racism. And this is a moment for people who believe in equal rights to stand with D.C., because right now you’re either with D.C. or you are with tyranny. And whether it’s a corporation or anyone else in this — any other entity in this country, this is a moment where people have to decide: Are you on the side of the people, or are you on the side of this dictator and this tyranny?

AMY GOODMAN: I just wanted to ask you about President Trump’s threats against the unhoused population of Washington, D.C. This is Jason — Jesse Rabinowitz of the National Homelessness Law Center speaking outside the White House.

JESSE RABINOWITZ: Locking up people you don’t like or don’t want to see is textbook authoritarianism. Trump is testing opinion by focusing on groups that he believes to have little public sympathy, like folks who live outside. Right now they are coming for homeless folks, trans folks and migrants, but, rest assured, soon they will come for everyone who is not a white, straight, cis, wealthy, Christian man. The only solution is solidarity and collective action.

AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Keya, we’re just wrapping up right now, Keya Chatterjee. They’ve already dismantled the largest unhoused encampment. Can you talk about what’s happening to the unhoused in Washington, D.C., as these, now it looks like, thousands of troops are moving in and now being allowed to carry pistols?

KEYA CHATTERJEE: It’s incredibly dangerous for our unhoused population. And I think one thing that’s important to understand about our communities is that these are community members that are woven into the fabric of our communities in D.C. We have a newspaper called Street Sense newspaper that is written by and sold by people who are houseless in our community. These are neighbors who we know. We see them outside. We talk to them every day.

And witnessing this brutality is so harmful to our communities and to those people. They are literally putting people’s — all of people’s belongings into the trash. They are trying to make it a crime to be poor. They are trying to make it a crime to simply exist for people who are poor. We know that sleeping is a biological necessity, and if you say that it is illegal to sleep outside, what you’re saying is that somebody’s existence is illegal. And that’s not just somebody. These are our neighbors. This is our community. They are being treated with such incredible brutality right now, and we need that to end.

And that is our fundamental message, is that the people of D.C. are united in wanting these escalated forces, Trump’s escalated forces, out of our communities today. You know, there are bills that would end this sooner rather than later. There are bills that would end it today. And we are asking for everybody’s support to — you know, to allies from around the country and around the world — visit our website. Again, it’s FreeDCProject.org/allies or /occupation. And find out how you can help us, because we are very united that this attack on our people, whether it’s our houseless neighbors, whether it is immigrants, whether it is anyone else, it needs to end.

AMY GOODMAN: Keya Chatterjee, we want to thank you for being with us, executive director of the group Free DC.

Coming up, “The Number: How Much Is Trump Pocketing Off the Presidency?” We’ll speak with New Yorker investigative reporter David Kirkpatrick. Stay with us.

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AMY GOODMAN: Lila Downs performing “Demagogue” at our Democracy Now! studio.