President Trump: 'DC will never be a state' because Republicans aren't 'stupid' enough to give Democrats two automatic Senate seats

For decades, advocates for statehood for Washington, D.C., have complained that it's not fair that the nation's capital city doesn't have its own representation in Congress. Those advocates have said the district's 700,000 residents deserve to have their voice heard on Capitol Hill with more than just a non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives.

Opponents of the District of Columbia statehood have repeatedly noted that the Founders designed the seat of government to be represented by all of Congress and not have its own representatives for its own interests.

The New York Post asked President Donald Trump for his thoughts on the idea of D.C. statehood.

The president was clear in his answer: "D.C. will never be a state."

Why? No self-respecting Republican is going to vote to give Democrats two more Senate seats.

Trump is a no

The GOP has long opposed D.C. statehood generally — both because of a deference to the constitutional intentions of the Founders and because the city is heavily Democratic. So any senators or representatives elected from the district would almost be guaranteed to be Democrats.

And President Trump understands this: He won only 4% of the D.C. vote in 2016.

When the Post asked him about it, Trump replied, “DC will never be a state. 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 told the Post that Democrats back D.C. statehood not because they care about the district's citizens but because they're seeking a political advantage.

"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?," he said.

The only way it could possibly happen is if Republicans are "stupid" enough to vote for it.

"That'll never happen unless we have some very, very stupid Republicans around that I don't think you do. You understand that, right?" Trump said to the paper.

He added, “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," the Post reported.