Trump says he is sending more federal forces to troubled cities and insists that both the mayor and the governor support it. Speaking on Fox News, he said “the mayor is happy” and “the governor is happy” about the deployment. The mayor is a Democrat and the governor is a Republican. He added that the city is “deeply troubled” and promised, “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington,” where he has already sent National Guard troops and federal law enforcement.
Since sending troops to Los Angeles and Washington, Trump has floated the idea of doing the same in several of the nation’s most Democratic cities, including Chicago and Baltimore. He argues that federal intervention is necessary to crack down on crime. Trump admitted he “would have preferred going to Chicago,” but claimed local leaders there are hostile to the idea and described the city as full of “professional agitators.”
Earlier in June, Trump overrode Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s objections by taking control of the California National Guard under federal authority, known as Title 10.
That move allowed him to deploy troops in Los Angeles to protect federal property during protests over immigration raids. More than 4,000 Guard members were sent, along with 700 active duty Marines. California later sued over the intervention, but the Guard ended up assisting federal officers during immigration arrests.
Trump has been able to act even more freely in Washington, D.C., because of the unusual status of the city’s National Guard. Unlike states, the Guard there reports directly to the president, making Trump its commander in chief. That arrangement has let him use the force not just for patrols but even for tasks like trash cleanup, without running into legal barriers. Since the D.C. Guard operates under state authority and not federal law enforcement orders, the usual restrictions don’t apply.
Critics argue the president is using troops in ways that cross legal and political lines, but Trump frames it as restoring order where local leaders have failed. By contrasting Democratic mayors who oppose him with Republican governors or his own direct authority in D.C., he has shown a pattern of expanding federal reach into cities where he sees unrest or rising crime.
The clashes with governors like Newsom show that not all states are willing to accept his approach, but Trump has shown he is ready to push ahead anyway.
The deployment of Marines and federalized National Guard members to Los Angeles, the lawsuit filed by California, and the broad powers Trump enjoys over the D.C. Guard all highlight how different the situation can be depending on where he chooses to act. For Trump, Chicago remains the biggest target, but also the toughest, given the open resistance of local leaders.