Nia-Malika Henderson, Columnist

DC Would Make a Great 51st State

Trump wants to claw back the city’s limited home rule. But statehood would be the better option.

February 22, 2025 at 1:00 PM UTC

Nia-Malika Henderson is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former senior political reporter for CNN and the Washington Post, she has covered politics and campaigns for almost two decades.

DC’s mayor should be a governor.
Photographer: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

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Add the nation’s capital to President Donald Trump’s acquisition list. Repeating a campaign promise and a relatively new aim of some Republicans, Trump has said the federal government should take over Washington, DC which has had a limited system of “home rule” since 1973.

“I think that we should run it strong, run it with law and order, make it absolutely flawlessly beautiful,” said Trump, who famously summoned a mob to the US Capitol and made it the subject of one of the largest investigations in American history. “You have a great police department there. But somehow they’re not utilized properly. We should govern DC.”