Who?
Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) — Alabama gubernatorial candidate; fmr Auburn University head football coach
LISTEN: Laslo & Tuberville
Ask a Pol asks:
President Donald Trump was asked about taking over control of Washington, DC’s locally elected government, and he said he’s looking into it. What do you think of that?
Key Tuberville:
“It’s awful. Look at the streets littered. Nobody does anything here. I mean ever since I’ve been here it’s just, it kinda runs on its own. I don’t know what they do with the money up here, because they got money,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville exclusively tells Ask a Pol.
So would you be supportive of a federal takeover of the city?
“Yeah,” Tuberville says. “Doing something where we might just have a little say so about cleaning up the capital city of the United States of America, because right now it’s — you just walk around, it’s just a pigsty.”
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Caught our ear:
“It’s pretty easy to clean the streets and get the graffiti off the walls,” Tuberville tells us. “You know, get the homeless out of the way of the tourists. I mean, that’d be pretty easy. I’d love to own that. Let me do it.”
Below find a rough transcript of Ask a Pol’s exclusive interview with Sen Tommy Tuberville (R-AL), slightly edited for clarity.
TRANSCRIPT: Sen. Tommy Tuberville (7-9-2025)
SCENE: After voting, Sen. — “coach” — Tommy Tuberville and an aide are heading back to their office across the street walking along two underground tram tracks in the Capitol’s basement.
Ask a Pol’s Matt Laslo slides in and snags a quick, if informative, interview with the former Auburn football coach who’s running to be governor of Alabama. A veteran NBC reporter Laslo knows follows at a respectable distance, just waiting for an opening so he can ask about a different topic altogether.
Matt Laslo: “Look at this young man!”
Tommy Tuberville: “What are you doing?”
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ML: “Would you be supportive if — Trump keeps getting asked, earlier today he was asked about…”
TT: “What?”
ML: “Earlier this week, the president was asked about taking over DC government, and he said he’s looking into it. What do you think?”
TT: “It’s awful. Look at the streets littered. I mean it’s — I mean, nobody does anything here. I mean ever since I’ve been here it’s just, it kinda runs on its own. I don’t know what they do with the money up here, because they got money.”
ML: “So, would you be supportive of, like…?”
TT: “Yeah. Doing something where we might just have a little say so about cleaning up the capital city of the United States of America, because right now it’s — you just walk around, it’s just a pigsty.”
ML: “And now isn’t it kinda like, you bought it?”
TT: “Who?”
ML: “Like, if you guys — like, if Trump puts his hands on it, do you guys kinda own the problem? Or do you think he could…?”
TT: “Well it’s pretty easy to clean the streets and get the graffiti off the walls…”
ML: “Yeah?”
TT: “….you know, get the homeless out of the way of the tourists. I mean that’d be pretty easy. I mean, I’d love to own that. Let me do it.”
ML: “Yeah?”
Laslo laughs.
ML: “I could see you doing that, coach.”
An underground Senate tram arrives.
TT: “Huh?”
ML: “I could see you doing that, coach.”
TT: “Damn right.”
ML: “You need to do that in ‘Bama.”
TT: “Hey, if we can’t take care of our nation’s capital, I mean what do we expect out of these other cities?”
ML: “Yeah?”
NBC: “Senator…”
ML: “I’ll leave you with my colleague. Thank you.”
Logan Johnson contributed to this report.
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