Troops aren’t Trump’s only weapon against big blue cities

The Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement and National Guard deployments have ignited searing conflicts between the federal government and local officials in Democratic-run cities. But those battles are only the most visible manifestation of a much broader effort by President Donald Trump to exert unprecedented control over the nation’s large urban centers.

The administration is pressuring cities to adopt conservative policies on issues including racial diversity, transgender rights and immigration by moving to rescind their funding from a wide array of federal programs unless they do so. With tens of billions of dollars in funding at stake, the administration is using the lever of federal dollars to impose right-leaning policies popular in red jurisdictions on blue