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President Trump said he was considering sending troops to cities like Chicago, New York and Baltimore. State and local leaders say they have crime under control.
Aug. 24, 2025, 1:58 p.m. ET
Democrats on Sunday pushed back against President Trump’s characterization of blue-state cities as crime-ridden and lawless, which the White House has used to justify calling up National Guard troops and sending federal law enforcement agents to Washington streets.
Mr. Trump said on Friday that he was considering using the same playbook in other major American cities, and that Chicago could be next. The administration has not indicated when the National Guard could be sent to Chicago, New York or any of the other cities the president has mentioned.
Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, said on CNN on Sunday that Mr. Trump’s threat was more a reflection of the president’s animus toward its Democratic leadership and desire to crackdown on immigration than a considered strategy to take on crime.
“When you look at what he did in D.C., he’s not going to actually deal with crime,” Mr. Emanuel said. “This is an attempt to deal with cities that are welcoming cities, known as sanctuary cities, and deal with immigration.”
Violent crime in Chicago, Washington and other major cities has fallen in recent years. In a statement on Saturday, Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois said that “there is no emergency that warrants the president of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard” or sending in federal agents. The governor said he had not received any communication from the White House about such a deployment and added that the president was “attempting to manufacture a crisis.”
On Sunday morning, Mr. Trump wrote on social media that he was also considering sending National Guard troops to Baltimore, describing the city as “out of control” and “crime ridden.” In an appearance on CBS, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a Democrat, pointed out that homicides in the city had dropped significantly and said the president was relying on “tropes” and “1980s scare tactics.”
In an Aug. 21 letter, Mr. Moore invited President Trump to join him on a “safety walk” in the state next month. President Trump gave his answer as a resounding “no” on Sunday morning, writing in the social media post that he would send National Guard troops to “clean up the crime disaster” before setting foot in Baltimore.
The city’s mayor, Brandon Scott, said in a statement on Friday that he and Baltimore residents “are not interested” in having the president “roll into Baltimore purely to stage a photo op.” But Mr. Scott also called for additional resources for F.B.I., Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Baltimore to continue the “investigatory work they are already doing in partnership with the Baltimore Police Department.” Mr. Moore said he would “absolutely” back Mr. Scott’s support for additional federal resources for those agents.
Even as they push back on Mr. Trump’s dire descriptions of unfettered violence and lawlessness in blue cities, Democrats have been careful not to outright dismiss concerns about crime.
In Chicago, Mr. Emanuel said that prosecutors should pursue penalties for gun crimes and that law enforcement should work to combat carjackings, a category of crime that he said has not fallen as sharply as others. But city leaders are treading the right path already, he said, and do not need the kind of assistance the federal government is offering.
“We have a strategy for fighting crime: more police on the beat and getting kids, gangs and guns off the street,” he said. “And that’s what has to be done.”
Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader and a New York Democrat, said his party understood that voters wanted to see crime rates continue to drop in their communities. But he added that Mr. Trump had “no basis, no authority” to send federal troops or agents to Chicago.
“The American people understandably want safer communities,” Mr. Jeffries said. “We want to continue to make sure that crime can go down as it’s doing in Chicago, in New York, in Washington, D.C., and other places, and to do that we should support local law enforcement.”
Julie Bosman, Tyler Pager and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
