Trump weighs sending troops to New Orleans in first red state crime deployment
The article discusses former President Donald TrumpS consideration of deploying federal troops too New Orleans as part of a broader plan to address crime in U.S. cities. This would mark Trump’s first proposal to send troops to a red state,following his militarization of Washington,D.C.’s police force. Trump mentioned evaluating whether to send troops to Chicago or New Orleans, praising Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry’s support for federal intervention to combat escalating crime. Louisiana currently has several cities with some of the highest murder rates in the country, including Shreveport. Trump suggested that federal troops could “straighten out” crime issues in New Orleans within two weeks, similar to efforts undertaken in Washington, D.C. He also criticized Democratic city and state leaders, such as Chicago’s Governor JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, for their handling of crime, although Pritzker opposes national Guard deployment while remaining open to federal law enforcement assistance. Trump envisions replicating his Washington, D.C. crime reduction model in other major cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
Trump weighs sending troops to New Orleans in first red state crime deployment
President Donald Trump teased sending federal troops to New Orleans in addition to Chicago, marking his first time publicly threatening to send troops to a red state after he militarized Washington, D.C.’s, police force.
“We’re making a determination now, do we go to Chicago, or … do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad,” Trump told reporters during a Wednesday bilateral meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki.
TRUMP SEES CRIME CRACKDOWN AS THE ISSUE TO BLOW UP BLUE-CITY DEMOCRATIC COALITION
Trump escalated his yearslong battle with Democratic mayors and governors by threatening to deploy the National Guard to cities with high crime rates after his takeover of the district’s police force.
He has specifically blasted Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL), Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA), and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass as incompetent leaders who cannot alleviate the crime in their cities and states.
However, Trump’s comments on Wednesday suggested he could deploy forces to Louisiana, led by Gov. Jeff Landry (R). Louisiana is home to eight of the top 10 cities with the highest murder rates in 2024, with populations of at least 100,000, according to FBI data.
Shreveport, Louisiana, has the 10th highest murder rate of any city in the United States with a population of 100,000 or more. New Orleans is not among the top 20 highest murder rate cities, but it is helmed by Democratic Mayor LaToya Cantrell, while Shreveport is led by Republican Mayor Tom Arceneaux.
“So we’re going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It’ll take us two weeks, easier than D.C., but we could straighten out Chicago,” Trump continued. “All they have to do is ask us to go into Chicago, if we don’t have the support of some of these politicians. But I’ll tell you who is supporting us — the people of Chicago.”
Pritzker told CBS News over the weekend that he would not accept National Guard forces in Chicago but was open to support from federal law enforcement agencies, including the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and the Drug Enforcement Administration.
“It’s clear that, in secret, they’re planning this — well, it’s an invasion with U.S. troops, if they, in fact, do that,” Pritzker said about an expected illegal immigration crackdown in Chicago on Friday.
TRUMP SAYS CHICAGO IS ‘PROBABLY’ NEXT AFTER WASHINGTON, D.C., TAKEOVER
However, Trump said the success in lowering the district’s crime rate could be replicated in Chicago.
“We have a great thing going,” he said. “I could do that with Chicago. We could do that with New York. We could do it with Los Angeles.”
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