President Trump on Monday said he might back off his threat to deploy the National Guard to curb crime in Democratic-run cities such as Chicago, saying he’d prefer to wait until state or local officials ask for his help.
“In a certain way, you really want to be asked to go. I hate to barge in on a city and then be treated horribly by corrupt politicians and bad politicians,” Mr. Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“I don’t like going to a town, city, place, a state and then be criticized by some corrupt or incompetent governor where crime is rampant,” Mr. Trump said. “But I’m really saying, and I say this to all of you, in a certain way, we should wait to be asked. Because they have cities that are so out of control. So we go in and fix it, they take the full credit for it.”
The president over the weekend ramped up his threat to deploy National Guard troops to major cities such as Baltimore and Chicago as his federal crackdown in the District of Columbia enters its third week. On Friday, he had warned that Chicago was “next” for such treatment.
Unlike the District, where the federal government holds some authority over policing and the National Guard, other cities have more local control. In most other states, the local governor controls the National Guard.
Mr. Trump issued an order earlier this month mobilizing the National Guard in the District and placing the local police department under the control of the federal government.
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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, both Democrats, have pushed back against Mr. Trump’s call for the military to patrol their state’s largest cities.
Mr. Trump’s comments Monday came ahead of his signing of a series of executive orders to bolster the federal government’s efforts to curb crime in the nation’s capital. He signed orders that aimed to end cashless bail, increased penalties for burning the American flag and established specialized National Guard units to deal with public order issues.
