Trump Floats Deploying National Guard to New York, Chicago, and LA After DC Crack Down

President Donald Trump said his administration is going to look at deploying the U.S. military to other American cities, including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, at a press conference where he announced that he was taking federal control of the police department in Washington, D.C., and deploying 800 National Guard troops there to crack down on crime.

Speaking from the White House briefing room in an extended and rambling press conference while flanked by members of his Cabinet, Trump declared the move “Liberation Day in D.C.” and said he was seeking to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse.”

Trump then revealed he is considering a similar move in other cities, including New York, which has in recent years seen violent crime reach lows not seeing in decades.

“Then I’m going to look at New York, in a little while,” Trump said. “Let’s do this. Let’s do this together.”

Trump went on to note his administration is also considering sending the military into Chicago, and mocked the Democratic governor of Illinois (and billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune) J.B. Pritzker.

“If we need to, we’re gonna do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” Trump said. “We have a mayor there who is totally incompetent. He’s an incompetent man. and we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker’s an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business. And he ran for governor. And now I understand he wants to be president. But I noticed he lost a little weight so now he has a chance.”

After a tangent on the Los Angeles fires, Trump added: “Hopefully LA is watching.”

Crime remains high in Washington, D.C., compared to other major American cities, but it is nowhere near historic highs seen in the 1980s and 1990s. There was a surge in crime in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which has ebbed in recent years.

Watch above, via MSNBC.