DC residents rebel against Trump’s ‘gestapo takeover’ of US capital: ‘We don’t want a militarized city!’

The following is a rushed transcript and may contain errors. A proofread version will be made available as soon as possible.

Speaker 1:

Hey, hey ho. The National Guard has got to go. We out here on 14th and you in Washington dc At the end of the free DC rally, the free DC movement is calling for the end of the occupation by the federal government of the District of Columbia. The free DC movement has a strategy and they implement this strategy one person at a time.

Speaker 2:

We’ll not let our people be snatched, kidnapped, abused, or disappeared by the state. We will protect each other always because we keep us safe. We demand ice out of dc. We demand an end to this unnecessary law enforcement. We demand full autonomy. We demand hands off dc. We demand homes for the unhoused. We demand dignity for our immigrants and we demand DC statehood. So this

Speaker 1:

Is y’all building y’all momentum.

Speaker 4:

How

Speaker 1:

Y’all doing that?

Speaker 4:

So we building it with people power, and we are moving just like they moved. When they take a step, we right behind them. Like I said, we didn’t just start this, we prepared for this

Speaker 5:

Beginning of this year we’ve been organizing on a neighborhood and at ward level in DC we’re fighting for statehood and we’re fighting to protect home rule and we’re going to keep doing that regardless. And yeah, we got to talk to our neighbors and keep fighting.

Speaker 4:

We knew that Trump was coming from the project 2025 when he got elected. So three DC project had been organized since January, 2025. So we have a strategy to build people power, and as they move closer to the occupation where they think they’re going to stay in DC we truly have to rise up and resist.

Speaker 1:

Talk about y’all strategy around trying to get the congressional body to prevent him from getting an extension on his occupation. I heard you talk about that earlier where y’all calling out all elected officials, federal and state. That’s

Speaker 4:

Right. State by state. State by state. We are asking everybody nationally to call your local congress person in your city and demand that they actually vote against everything that Trump is doing in an occupied authoritarianism and fascism way. We know that the power is in the people hold your Congress person accountable. DC doesn’t have a voice, DC doesn’t have a vote, but you can stand in solidarity with DC and free DC

Speaker 1:

How important it is for us to start looking at this in the context of us protecting because we say we keep us safe. So y’all strategy for us keeping us safe is to become more focused on pair up together and being accountable with where we like letting everybody know where we are going. You think that’s important?

Speaker 5:

I think it’s very important because really we move at the speed of our relationships is something that I like to say. Simply getting to know your neighbors is really the first step in building those relationships, having networks of people that can look out, let people know. If you see something going on, if you see the police or harassing people, snatching people up, you can look out for that. You can respond, you can whatever tactics you have at your disposal, right?

Speaker 4:

So at her’s dreams, we’re going to rise up, we’re going to go to court with our people. We are going to snatch them back just like we did Afeni in ways that they try to steal our people at free DC project. That’s when we are protecting DC home rule and also fighting in the long run. When Trump leave to make DC a state

Speaker 1:

In terms of your mayor’s response and your mayor, when Trump said something about Baltimore, your mayor stood up and defied them outright like, no, you can’t, we not having it. Sure. How do you think the DC government should be reacting?

Speaker 6:

Well, I can’t tell you that I have the answer when it comes to the legalities of it, but I can tell you that the humanity of it is unquestionable, right? You have to protect your people. You have to remember who people are. You have to give them the humanity back, and you have to do it sometimes in ways that are uncomfortable. You have to remind people that you stand with them no matter what happens. You have to show them that you care for them, care about them, and you have to walk it like you talk it. You have to. It’s not just we are tired of empty words and we’re tired of people making false promises. If anything that I could say, I’m not in a place to be dictating what a city should be doing, but I could tell you that as a human being, I think we owe it to our neighbors, to our community, to our brothers and sisters, to ourselves, to fight for each other because at the end of the day, that’s all that matters. If we’re not willing to stand up and fight for each other, then how dare we just ask anything of anybody?

Speaker 7:

This Gestapo take over. It’s not acceptable because she’s a black woman. I mean this clearly showing bias, stereotype xenophobic, why they don’t go and do that in the white cities. He got California, he got Baltimore, he got here, he got New York. All those cities that he mentioned, all black mayors. There’s something in the water, something don’t add up. I’m always

Speaker 8:

Cognizant of I’m a link in a long chain. I’m not doing anything new. I’m just the next person in the line doing the thing. You get what I’m saying? As it relates to today’s events though, one of the things I think is the coolest thing about the world that we’re in right now is everything being interconnected. This idea that borders and all these things are important, and oh, you got to be a certain type of person to do, don’t even, I’m not even respectfully absorbing that because I was a student once. I’m somebody’s child. You know what I’m saying? And if I can get outside and do these things and get in here and do this political organizing work, political organizing work is not, no, it looks like this sometimes, but it’s really, it’s you going and talking to your neighborhood. You feel me? It’s you being in your neighborhood realizing that you don’t have something that you need, and making sure that you and your peoples get what they need and then spreading that around. That’s organizing work. You can be like her if you’re willing to do the work, if you’re willing to get involved in your community. The whole reason why I’m even out here is because of people like me.

Speaker 4:

Our reality, I’m tired and I don’t want to be here. I don’t want to be here.

Speaker 6:

I never want to remember myself when the moments when things happen that I sat out, that’s not who I am. When injustice happens, I show up and I know I’m tired. And it was said in the speeches that black women are out here tired, that they’ve been pushing, and we have, we’re exhausted. We’re angry still, and we’re disappointed. And I could tell you that many of us wish we could just sit at home and just stop.

Speaker 1:

We don’t have that

Speaker 6:

Luxury. We don’t. We don’t. And that’s that I come because honestly, I have been pushing for people who look like me to be more vocal and visible. I know it’s scary. I know people are, they’re throwing in a towel. But we absolutely, like you said, do not have that luxury. And I want people to know that we should not be going out laying down.

Speaker 2:

We to let a white supremacist authoritarian control our lives. Our ancestors resisted worse than what we are going through and we’ll resist. Now. Children shouldn’t be

Speaker 3:

Afraid at home of soldiers on the streets. Children should not feel like suspects for simply living. Our young people deserve joy, safety, and dignity, not militarization.

Speaker 9:

The biggest connection to make is where does the money go and why is there always money for war and not for dealing with the poor? And that’s a domestic as well as an international issue.

Speaker 10:

According to estimates, it costs over $420,000 a day to deploy the DC Guard. That number does not factor in the guard now invading from West Virginia, Ohio, and South Carolina. But just using this DC cost $420,000 a day tells an important story. It costs $47,000 a year to get somebody off the street and into housing for one year. For one day of DC Guard activation. We could solve homelessness for nine people.

Speaker 9:

I was out of town, came back yesterday, walked into Union Station outside and saw these tanks placed around

Speaker 1:

There

Speaker 9:

With these guys in military uniform. And I’m thinking, what the heck is this? We don’t want militarized city. But what I’m worried about is that Trump is now touting this. He had just had a national press conference and saying that his friends in DC and I think he means white, rich people in DC suddenly feel that they are safe to go out and have their dinner parties and be out on the street at night. Which is ridiculous because the streets of DC have been filled with people. And so they’re making this stuff up and they’re pretending that DC was so crime ridden and now it’s been liberated. And I think if the media, not the real news, but the corporate media echo this kind of thing, it will be a dangerous precedent, not only for DC but for other cities. And he is going after the, not only democratic cities, but cities that are governed by black mayors. And so this is one facet of this racist attempt to change the city, to get rid of all the DEI, what he’s doing around the Smithsonian and all these other things. It’s part of a much larger, very diabolical

Speaker 1:

Plan. And you deploy all that for homeless people, but talk about his attack on people that’s poor and don’t have no place. They crime, the only crime they guys, they don’t have.

Speaker 9:

Well, absolutely, and I know I saw an interview they did with one of the people who are sleeping on the streets and they give us housing. So yeah, I mean, talk about the rent is too damn high. The rent is too damn, too damn high in this city. It’s impossible for a lot of working people to live in the places where they work. That’s an issue that has to be dealt with. Instead of these millions of dollars that they’re spending on bringing in the National Guard and bringing all of these federal troops into our city, they should be dealing with the basic issues of how do we get housing for people? How do we get mental healthcare for people? How do we deal with people’s everyday needs and issues? And I’m wearing a shirt that says, money for the poor, not for war. And I see war in the largest context, not only of the billions of dollars we spend on wars in Ukraine and on Israel, but also the war at home. And this is now such an obvious example of the war at home and how skewed our priorities are. We need the money we’re spending on militarizing our streets to be used to help the poor in DC.