Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., has offered a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that his home state absorb the residents of Washington, D.C., to escape the "brutal thumb" of President Donald Trump and his administration.
Trump has made repeated suggestions about making Canada the 51st state. In January, Canadian Green Party leader Elizabeth May suggested Washington, Oregon, and California become new provinces of Canada in response to Americans looking to escape the administration.
On Tuesday, Raskin became the latest politician to offer his own advice on how to geographically push back against Trump.
"If you guys want to think about coming back to Maryland for this period, you would definitely be safer in the free state than you'd be under the brutal thumb of MAGA colonialism," Raskin quipped on the City Cast DC podcast this week.
D.C. was created in 1790 after both Maryland and Virginia ceded land to the federal government for the creation of a federal district. In 1800 the nation’s capital was officially moved from Philadelphia to the newly created district.
Democrats have often suggested giving statehood to Washington D.C. in the hopes of adding two more U.S. senators from a city that voted 93% for former President Joe Biden and a paltry 5% for Trump. On the official Statehood of D.C. website, the most recent referendum noted that 86% of residents want to be their own state, not a part of Maryland: "D.C. voters have already said loud and clear that we do not want retrocession, we want statehood."
Raskin said this wasn’t the first time he’s mentioned D.C. becoming part of Maryland and had even floated the idea to Mayor Muriel Bowser who he claims responded that she "took it under advisement."
James Morley III ✉
James Morley III is a writer with more than two decades of experience in entertainment, travel, technology, and science and nature.
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