President Donald Trump on Tuesday seized on a series of holiday weekend homicides to once again threaten sending in the National Guard and federal law enforcement as he incorrectly dubbed Chicago “the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far” in an early morning social media post.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the president noted that “at least 54 people” were injured by gunfire in America’s third-largest city with eight dying as a result. Local reports cite seven fatalities among the 54 shot over the holiday weekend.
“At least 54 people were shot in Chicago over the weekend, 8 people were killed. The last two weekends were similar. Chicago is the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far,” Trump wrote, ahead of a 2 pm announcement from the White House on a yet-to-be-determined topic.
He implicitly blamed Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, claiming that the Democratic politician and potential 2028 presidential candidate “needs help badly” but “just doesn’t know it yet.”
He then claimed he would “solve the crime problem fast” in the Windy City, comparing his as-yet unspecified efforts at a show of force against the Democratic-led city and state governments with his use of a never-before-used authority to seize temporary control of the Washington, D.C. police department last month.
“Chicago will be safe again, and soon,” Trump added.
Trump has spent weeks railing against Democratic elected officials and blaming them for what he has described as out-of-control crime in some of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas, including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and Washington.
It’s a pattern that dates back to his first term in the White House, when he would routinely rail against crime problems in cities with Black mayors and threaten action against them.
While Chicago has long had a problem with gun violence and a large number of homicides and shootings each year, other cities in Republican-led areas actually have far higher crime rates when weighted for population.
Nonetheless, Trump has signaled his intent to use federal resources to make a spectacle that will solidity the image he wants to cultivate of himself as a crime fighter rather than the first convicted criminal ever elected to the presidency.
Unlike in Washington, where the city’s federal status gives the president outsized influence over law enforcement operations and control of national guard units there, Trump has no such powers in Illinois.
Pritzker, long considered a presidential hopeful by Democratic insiders, told the Associated Press last week that there is “no emergency” in his state’s largest city and credited local authorities for making strides against criminality there.
“We’ve been fighting crime. We’ve been trying to prevent crime and it’s been working,” he said.
But Trump appears intent on deploying national guard forces into Democratic cities.
He is understood to be considering using the part-time soldiers as a protective force in support of Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids.
The Department of Homeland Security has requested access to Great Lakes Naval Station — about 40 miles north of Chicago — to house ICE and Customs and Border Protection agents from September 2 through 30, including support National Guard resources.
Trump’s border czar Tom Homan confirmed to reporters Thursday that "there's discussions" about ICE using a naval base north of Chicago as an operations center, noting "the planning is still being discussed." He didn’t say whether National Guard troops would use the base.
