President Donald Trump said on Friday that he was planning to send the National Guard to Memphis—the latest in a string of cities he’s threatened to deploy troops to as part of his crackdown on crime.
“We’re going to Memphis,” Trump said on Fox News’ Fox & Friends. “We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.”
Trump called Memphis “deeply troubled,” claiming that both the city’s Democratic mayor and the state’s Republican governor were “happy” with the decision. He said that, in addition to National Guard troops, his Administration would also send “anybody else we need” to the city.
“We’ll bring in the military too if we need it,” Trump said.
In 2024, Memphis had the highest rates of murder and violent crime compared to other major U.S. cities, according to a USA TODAY analysis. But the Memphis Police Department said this week that, overall, crime in the city is at a historic 25-year low so far this year. Robbery, burglary, and larceny are at 25-year lows, while murder is at a six-year low, the police force said.
Last month, Trump took control of the Washington, D.C. police department and deployed National Guard troops to the city’s streets. He cited violent crime as the motivation for the move, even though city data showed that violent crime in the nation’s capital was already falling significantly. Trump’s 30-day takeover of the city’s police force expired Wednesday night, but National Guard troops are set to remain in D.C. at least through the end of November.
The President previously deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles earlier in the summer to quell protests over immigration raids in the city, despite facing opposition from the city’s mayor and California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Trump has indicated his desire to send National Guard troops to other major cities that he believes have a crime problem, too, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland, and New Orleans.
While most of the cities Trump has suggested deploying troops to are located in Democratic-run states, New Orleans and Memphis are in states led by Republican governors and the GOP controls both chambers of their state legislatures, though the cities themselves have Democratic mayors. After the President launched his crackdown in D.C. last month, both Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee sent National Guard troops to the city to assist in the operation.
When announcing on Friday that his Administration would send troops to Memphis, Trump said he “would’ve preferred going to Chicago.” In August, Trump said that Chicago would likely be the “next” city his Administration would crack down on. Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, rejected the idea, and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, also a Democrat, ordered city departments not to cooperate if troops were deployed to the city. The President slammed local officials, and claimed that his Administration was “going to do it anyway.”
Trump did not say on Friday what law he would invoke to send troops to Memphis. A federal judge ruled earlier in September that the National Guard’s deployment in Los Angeles this summer violated federal law due to the troops’ use in civil law enforcement functions.
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