President Donald Trump intensified his rhetoric about intervening to address crime in Chicago via the National Guard on Monday, inching closer to the potential next step in his administration’s efforts to increase military presences in major American cities.
In comments to reporters in the Oval Office, Trump repeatedly decried the nation’s third-largest city as “a disaster” and “a killing field,” suggesting he will deploy the Illinois National Guard to Chicago against the wishes of city and state officials.
“We go in, we will solve Chicago within one week, maybe less,” Trump said Monday morning. “But within one week we'll have no crime in Chicago, like no crime in D.C."
“We may go in and do it,” he said.
Trump escalated his threats against Chicago on Friday, singling out the city as his administration’s next target in its campaign to spur urban crime through the use of the National Guard following an ongoing interagency effort in Washington.
The Friday comments drew swift criticism from Democrats including Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who accused Trump of attempting to “create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular.”
In a Friday statement, Johnson called Trump’s use of the National Guard “uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” warning that a deployment in Chicago could inflame tensions in the city.
Trump derided Johnson and Pritzker Monday, pushing back on Pritzker's response that Trump’s move was “an authoritarian power grab of major cities” by calling the governor a dictator.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was tasked Monday with setting up a quick reaction force within the National Guard to be able to deploy quickly to assist local, state and federal law enforcement.
The measure, which was spelled out in an executive order signed by Trump Monday, is the latest in a series of moves made by the administration to use the guard for law enforcement activities, after the president called up 2,000 guard members to deploy to Los Angeles this summer, and another 800 to hit the streets of Washington, D.C., to backstop local cops and federal law enforcement.
The order calls for the units to assist in “quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate,” for “nationwide deployment.”
“We’re ready to go anywhere” in the nation with National Guard troops, Trump said in the Oval Office after signing a slew of executive orders.
Calling out and deploying National Guard troops is normally at the behest of each state’s governor, though the president can federalize the guard under extreme circumstances. Over the weekend, the D.C. guard began carrying weapons in the city for the first time.
The escalation comes as the Trump administration continues to face legal scrutiny over its June deployment of the National Guard in Los Angeles, with a federal judge in California currently weighing whether the move was illegal. The judge’s decision could have implications for Trump’s ability to authorize similar deployments in other cities.
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