Trump Threatens Federal Control of DC; Texas Governor Asks Court to Remove State House Democratic Chair | NTD Good Morning (Aug. 5)

President Donald Trump is threatening to federalize control of the District of Columbia after a Department of Government Efficiency staffer was allegedly severely assaulted in an attempted carjacking. According to the latest statistics, crime in Washington is down 35 percent from last year, but Trump says the city is still out of control. The president criticized the city’s crime laws, and called for offenders as young as 14 to be tried as adults.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has asked the state’s Supreme Court to remove the state House Democratic chair, Gene Wu, from office. The state’s attorney general says he’s giving the nearly 60 absent Democrats until Friday to return, or he’ll seek to remove them, too. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) has asked the FBI to help arrest them to force them to return to Texas. If Democrats return for the vote, it’s near certain that a new congressional map—one that’s said to favor Republicans—would be approved.

Smoke from wildfires in the West and Canada is lowering air quality across eleven states in the Midwest and Northeast. Millions of people in the region were under air quality alerts on Tuesday as smoke spread across large sections of the country. Crews in Southern California are still fighting the Gifford Fire to the north of Santa Barbara, which has burned more than 80,000 acres so far and prompted evacuation orders in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.