President Donald Trump is weighing in on the prospect of Washington, D.C., becoming the 51st state.
“D.C. will never be a state,” Trump said during an interview with The New York Post. “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.”
Trump continued to argue that the move to grant the Washington, D.C. statehood is political, “They want to do that, so they pick up two automatic Democrat — you know it’s a 100 percent Democrat, basically — so why would the Republicans ever do that?”
“That’ll never happen unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans around that I don’t think you do. You understand that, right?” he added.
He continued:
“Why don’t you just take two senators and put them in there? No, it’s not gonna happen. And it how many House seats is it? Like four, three or four? Whatever it is. You’d have three or four more congressmen and two more senators, every single day of every single year. And it would never change. No, the Republicans would never do that.”
In February, the House Oversight Committee approved legislation to grant Washington, D.C. statehood for the first time in 30 years, as IJR reported.
Proponents of the move noted that the district has a population that is greater than Vermont or Wyoming but only has a non-voting member of the House and no representation in the Senate.
In 2015, Trump weighed in on the issue and said he wants “whatever’s best for” for Washington, D.C.
