Washington, D.C
US House to vote on ‘reckless’ $1bn budget cut to Washington DC
Washington DC has found itself in the crosshairs of Donald Trump and congressional Republicans in recent weeks, with efforts by both to exert more control over the overwhelmingly Democratic capital city.
The president on Thursday signed an executive order he said would make Washington DC “safe, beautiful, and prosperous” by stepping up crime fighting, arrests of undocumented immigrants and the processing of permits to carry concealed weapons. Trump separately directed JD Vance to “remove improper ideology” from the Smithsonian Institution, which has many museums in and around the city.
Weeks earlier, Republicans in Congress approved a $1bn cut to the city’s budget that the mayor, Muriel Bowser, warned would result in disruptive cuts to police, schools and health services. The Senate quickly scrambled to undo the reduction, an effort Trump has since endorsed, but it is unclear when the House of Representatives will act.
“The House should take up the D.C. funding ‘fix’ that the Senate has passed, and get it done IMMEDIATELY. We need to clean up our once beautiful Capital City, and make it beautiful again,” the president wrote on Friday.
The forays into the city’s politics come despite efforts by Bowser to improve her previously tense relationship with Trump, including by jackhammering the Black Lives Matter plaza installed near the White House. While the public-safety executive order had long been anticipated, the budget cut was a surprise that was enacted as part of a federal government spending bill passed hours before a shutdown would have occurred.
Tazra Mitchell, chief policy and strategy officer at the DC Fiscal Policy Institute thinktank, said a cut of that magnitude to the city’s budget would ripple beyond its borders and affect transit and healthcare systems shared with neighboring Maryland and Virginia.
“We’re taught as children, if we make a mistake, we own up to it, and we try to do better and right the wrong that we’ve caused. And what we saw is that the US House had that opportunity and chose not to right the wrong,” Mitchell said.
The legislation, written by House Republicans and making use of Congress’s ability to review Washington DC’s laws, omits language approving its budget for the 2025 fiscal year. That prevents the city from spending its own locally collected tax revenue and forces a reversion to 2024’s spending levels, with likely devastating effects on its municipal services.
“These are local dollars. It doesn’t save the federal government any money. We’re halfway through our fiscal year, and cutting now would be reckless,” Bowser said at a press conference after the spending bill was approved.
While she did not say when the cut would take effect, the mayor warned that “if we had to make a billion-dollar cut right now … we have to go where the money is in our budget to cut that fast. And our top areas of spending are schools, public safety and the human services.”
It is unclear how the language approving Washington DC’s budget was removed from the federal spending bill, but just after it passed the Senate, the Republican Susan Collins described the omission as “a mistake”, and the chamber unanimously passed her legislation to fix it.
In the House, Republican leaders have not said when they will put it up for a vote, and a spokesperson for the speaker, Mike Johnson, did not respond to a request for comment. After Trump weighed in, Punchbowl News reported that the House would likely vote on the measure in early April.
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Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House appropriations committee, tried to get language approving the city’s budget added back in when her chamber passed the spending bill, but Republicans refused. “Speaker Johnson continues to drag his feet on putting the DC funding fix on the floor of the House of Representatives. This should have never happened,” DeLauro said. “President Trump is right to call on the House to take up the bill that the Senate has already unanimously passed.”
Some allies of the president have encouraged passage of the fix, including the National Fraternal Order of Police, which warned of a “quite severe” public-safety impact if the funding is not restored. The right-leaning American Enterprise Institute called the funding cut “deeply unfortunate”, while Ed Martin, the Trump-appointed interim US attorney for the district, told a neighborhood group this week that he had asked Johnson to bring the fix to the floor.
Some aligned with Trump regard the fix as leverage that should be used over the city. Before Trump weighed in, Andy Harris, chair of the far-right House Freedom caucus, told the Hill the measure’s passage should be delayed because his group needs “a little while to come up with a list of what requirements we should put on DC”, and criticized the city for spending “dollars in ways that in the past we thought were pretty foolish”.
Zack Smith, a senior legal fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, outlined in the Daily Signal a series of policies Congress could impose on Washington DC in the fix, including banning non-citizens from voting in local elections, preventing the city from spending money on undocumented immigrants and giving federal prosecutors the ability to prosecute juvenile offenders as adults.
If House leaders agree, it would be the latest instance of congresses, Democratic and Republican alike, interfering in the affairs of a city that many residents believe should be a state.
“It’s not even a budget cut. It’s really like a power grab over DC’s budget,” said Alex Dodds, co-founder of Free DC, a group that advocates for the city’s autonomy. “There’s just no way that people in Congress or this president know what we need better than we do.”
LANDOVER, Md. – Bruno Mars is bringing The Romantic Tour to the Washington, D.C. region this spring!
The Grammy-winning star will stop at Northwest Stadium on Saturday, May 2, 2026.
The stadium’s website lets fans sign up for presale access now. Tickets go on sale Thursday, January 15 at 12 p.m.
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA – FEBRUARY 02: Bruno Mars performs onstage during the 67th Annual GRAMMY Awards at Crypto.com Arena on February 02, 2025 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by Kevin Winter/Getty Images for The Recording Academy)
Bruno Mars – The Romantic Tour 2026 DatesApril – October 2026
Apr 10, 2026 – Allegiant Stadium, Las Vegas, NV
Apr 14, 2026 – State Farm Stadium, Glendale, AZ
Apr 18, 2026 – Globe Life Field, Arlington, TX
Apr 22, 2026 – NRG Stadium, Houston, TX
Apr 25, 2026 – Bobby Dodd Stadium at Hyundai Field, Atlanta, GA
Apr 29, 2026 – Bank of America Stadium, Charlotte, NC
May 02, 2026 – Northwest Stadium, Landover, MD
May 06, 2026 – Nissan Stadium, Nashville, TN
May 09, 2026 – Ford Field, Detroit, MI
May 13, 2026 – U.S. Bank Stadium, Minneapolis, MN
May 16, 2026 – Soldier Field Stadium, Chicago, IL
May 20, 2026 – Ohio Stadium, Columbus, OH
May 23, 2026 – Rogers Stadium, Toronto, ON
May 24, 2026 – Rogers Stadium, Toronto, ON
Jun 20, 2026 – Stade de France, Paris, FR
Jun 21, 2026 – Stade de France, Paris, FR
Jun 26, 2026 – Olympiastadion, Berlin, DE
Jul 04, 2026 – Johan Cruijff ArenA, Amsterdam, NL
Jul 05, 2026 – Johan Cruijff ArenA, Amsterdam, NL
Jul 10, 2026 – Riyadh Air Metropolitano, Madrid, ES
Jul 14, 2026 – Stadio San Siro, Milan, IT
Jul 18, 2026 – Wembley Stadium Connected by EE, London, UK
Jul 19, 2026 – Wembley Stadium Connected by EE, London, UK
Aug 21, 2026 – Metlife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
Aug 22, 2026 – Metlife Stadium, East Rutherford, NJ
Aug 29, 2026 – Acrisure Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA
Sep 01, 2026 – Lincoln Financial Field, Philadelphia, PA
Sep 05, 2026 – Gillette Stadium, Foxborough, MA
Sep 09, 2026 – Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, IN
Sep 12, 2026 – Raymond James Stadium, Tampa, FL
Sep 16, 2026 – Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, LA
Sep 19, 2026 – Hard Rock Stadium, Miami, FL
Sep 23, 2026 – Alamodome, San Antonio, TX
Sep 26, 2026 – Falcon Stadium, United States Air Force Academy, CO
Oct 02, 2026 – SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, CA
Oct 03, 2026 – SoFi Stadium, Los Angeles, CA
Oct 10, 2026 – Levi’s Stadium, Santa Clara, CA
Oct 14, 2026 – BC Place, Vancouver, BC
More information on the tour can be found online.
D.C.’s mayor and interim police chief took questions on immigration enforcement after an ICE agent shot and killed an unarmed woman in Minneapolis.
“If we don’t want ICE in our communities, we have to stop funding ICE – and that decision isn’t made here; it’s made at the Congress,” Mayor Muriel Bowser said.
The mayor was asked about her reaction to the killing.
“To me, it just is reflected, when you have people who are unaccustomed to urban policing trying to police in an urban environment. What it looked to me like – very bad, and I’m not a police officer, I’m not in law enforcement – but what I saw was completely avoidable, and a woman died,” she said.
“ICE is patrolling American cities. If we don’t want that, the Congress has to stop funding ICE, because thousands of agents who are untrained to police in urban environments are on our streets,” Bowser added.
In two recent incidents in D.C., federal agents opened fire on drivers who the agents claimed were trying to hit them with their vehicles. In those cases, no one was injured.
Interim Chief of Police Jeffery Carroll was asked about public concerns that might happen here again.
“A lot of these individuals, they don’t work in urban policing. So, us working with federal authorities in the policing operations, being out there, actually helps us make sure that we can work in those areas to help control what’s going on,” he said.
“Obviously, I can’t assure you of anything. Obviously, I can assure you every situation is different, right, that officers encounter out there,” he added. “But I think having the relationship and having the federal authorities working with the officers does help to mitigate some of the challenges that we have with that.”
Nadeau’s report on DC cooperation with immigration enforcement
Departing D.C. Councilmember Brianne Nadeau released a scathing report Thursday that’s critical of how MPD and the Bowser administration have cooperated with federal immigration enforcement.
“The primary finding is the loss of trust between the public and MPD,” she told News4. “The challenge that we’re finding is that the mayor and the chief’s interpretation of the Sanctuary Values Act has opened up a vulnerability whereby they are essentially cooperating with ICE in a manner that does not match with the intent of the law.”
Bowser declined to comment on the report.
Carroll said he has not decided whether to make any changes to MPD policies on cooperating with immigration enforcement.
Last month, Councilmember Brooke Pinto, who oversees public safety, sent a letter to the then-chief requesting detailed answers to several questions related to MPD’s cooperation with federal law enforcement. Carroll said Thursday that he will provide a response, which is due to the council by Friday.
In this 4 More Context, News4’s Ted Oberg explains how many people in the D.C. area have been arrested by ICE and why.
Sign up for our free deep-dive newsletter, The 4Front, to get standout News4 stories sent right to your inbox. Subscribe here.
WASHINGTON – A dry and mild Thursday is ahead for the Washington, D.C., region, with highs in the mid‑50s before a rainy start to the weekend.
What we know:
The morning begins on the chilly side with some patchy fog. FOX 5’s Taylor Grenda says conditions stay dry as temperatures climb into the afternoon, with clouds building by evening.
Rain showers may develop late Friday afternoon into the evening, with highs in the upper 50s.
What’s next:
Steadier rain moves in Saturday morning. Temperatures rise into the 60s, but on‑and‑off rain is expected through the afternoon and evening.
Sunday turns much drier, though highs fall back into the 50s. By Monday, colder air returns with highs in the 40s.
The Source: Information in this article comes from the FOX 5 Weather Team and the National Weather Service.
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