Aug. 22 (UPI) — President Donald Trump said Friday that his next targets for crime crackdowns would be Chicago and New York.
“After we do this, we’ll go to another location, and we’ll make it safe also,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
“We’re going to make our cities very, very safe,” he added. “Chicago’s a mess. You have an incompetent mayor [Brandon Johnson]. Grossly incompetent and we’ll straighten that one out probably next. That will be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough.”
Trump said there were “African American ladies, beautiful ladies,” urging him to intervene in Chicago, a city that has long struggled with gun violence. He indicated his administration would focus next on Chicago and then others, such as New York City.
He threatened using the “regular military,” an escalation from federal takeovers of police and deploying the National Guard.
“I really am honored that the National Guard has done such an incredible job working with the police,” Trump said during a press conference. “And we haven’t had to bring in the regular military, which we’re willing to do if we have to.”
He said he could keep National Guard members in the city “as long as I want” by declaring a national emergency. More than 1,900 National Guard troops from multiple states, including West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana and Tennessee, as well as the District of Columbia, have been mobilized in the district, according to Joint Task Force-DC.
Trump also took aim at D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and threatened to do more than just seize control of the police force.
“I’m tired of listening to these people say how safe it was before we got here. It was unsafe. It was horrible. And Mayor Bowser better get her act straight, or she won’t be mayor very long because we’ll take it over with the federal government running like it’s supposed to be run,” Trump said.
Trump dismissed polling that showed most city residents disapprove of the deployment of federal troops, calling it “fake news” and claiming that residents of Chicago and cities are begging for a similar crackdown where they live.
It was not immediately clear how a federal crackdown in Chicago would transpire. The District of Columbia is not a part of any state and has restrictions on its ability to self-govern, so the president has the ability to effectively federalize its police force. Other cities and states do not have similar status.