Trump: District of Columbia 'will never be a state'
President Trump rejected the idea of granting statehood to the District of Columbia, arguing in a new interview it would be too politically beneficial to Democrats.
“D.C. will never be a state,” Trump told The New York Post during an Oval Office interview on Monday. “You mean District of Columbia, a state? Why? So we can have two more Democratic — Democrat senators and five more congressmen? No thank you. That’ll never happen.”
The District has a population of roughly 700,000, which is more than that of Wyoming or Vermont. The District does not have any voting power in Congress, as it has no senators and one nonvoting delegate in the House.
The House Oversight and Reform Committee in February advanced legislation to make the District of Columbia the 51st state, marking the first vote in Congress in nearly 30 years to grant full congressional representation for residents of the nation's capital. It has yet to reach the full House floor for a vote.
But Trump made clear his opposition to the idea, and signaled that Republicans would not support it.
"That’ll never happen unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans around that I don’t think you do," Trump said.
"Why don’t you just take two senators and put them in there?" he added. "No, it’s not gonna happen."
Washington, D.C., is a mostly Democratic city. Hillary Clinton carried the District's three electoral votes in the 2016 election, winning 90 percent of the vote to Trump's 4 percent.
Should it become a state, the District would receive one House member based on its current population.