Donald Trump on Monday signed an executive order that would send national guard troops into Memphis, in a “replica” of the administration’s expanding military-led response to urban crime in Democratic-run cities.
The move was welcome by Tennessee’s Republican governor, Bill Lee, who stood behind Trump in the Oval Office as he signed a presidential memo establishing a Memphis Safe Task Force.
“We’re going to fix that just like we did Washington,” Trump said.
Announcing the taskforce in an Oval Office meeting, Trump said the troops would work alongside federal authorities from various agencies, including the FBI; the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms; the Drug Enforcement Administration; Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice); the US Marshall’s service and the Department of Justice. In his remarks on Monday, the president cited a slew of crime statistics and vowed to end the “savagery” and to “make Memphis safe again”.
Lee thanked the president for the deployment. “I’m tired of crime holding the great city of Memphis back,” the governor said.
Trump told Lee that the crime-fighting crackdown “will be your proudest moment” and predicted that crime in the city would “plummet” within weeks.
Trump was also joined at the Oval Office signing by the state’s Republican senators, Marsha Blackburn and Bill Hagerty.
Trump deployed national guard troops to Washington last month and federalized the city’s police force to “crack down” on crime in the nation’s capitol. Violent crime was already at a 30-year low in the city.
Speculation had centered on Chicago as Trump’s next city to send in the national guard and other federal authorities. But the administration has faced fierce resistance from Illinois’s Democratic governor, JB Pritzker, and the city’s Democratic leaders.
Trump on Monday said: “We’re going to be doing Chicago probably next” while also suggesting that a deployment wasn’t imminent.
“We don’t want to lose Chicago,” Trump said, noting that he has a “great, beautiful building” on the city’s skyline.
Speaking earlier on Monday, Pritzker told reporters that sending troops into a US city was a “terrible idea” and was hopeful Trump would ultimately decide against action in Chicago. “We never really know what he intends to do,” Pritzker added.
Hours later at the White House, Trump said his administration would not be deterred by Pritzker’s opposition.
“We hope we have the governor’s help,” Trump said. “But if we don’t, we’re doing it without him.”
Trump also floated St Louis, New Orleans and Baltimore as potential future targets. “We want to save these places,” he said.
