Democrats criticize Trump’s push for National Guard in more cities

Members of the National Guard on a train platform in Washington, on Tuesday, Aug., 19, 2025. President Trump said he was considering sending troops to cities like Chicago, New York and Baltimore. State and local leaders say they have crime under control. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times)

By Alyce McFadden

Democrats pushed back Sunday against President Donald Trump’s characterization of blue-state cities as crime-ridden and lawless, which the White House has used to justify calling up National Guard troops and sending federal law enforcement agents to Washington streets.

Trump said Friday that he was considering using the same playbook in other major U.S. cities, and that Chicago could be next. The administration has not indicated when the National Guard could be sent to Chicago, New York or any of the other cities the president has mentioned.

Rahm Emanuel, the former mayor of Chicago, said on CNN on Sunday that Trump’s threat was more a reflection of the president’s animus toward Chicago’s Democratic leadership and desire to crack down on immigration than a considered strategy to take on crime.

“When you look at what he did in D.C., he’s not going to actually deal with crime,” Emanuel said. “This is an attempt to deal with cities that are welcoming cities, known as sanctuary cities, and deal with immigration.”

Violent crime in Chicago, Washington and other major cities has fallen in recent years. Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois said in a statement Saturday, “There is no emergency that warrants the president of the United States federalizing the Illinois National Guard” or sending in federal agents. The governor said he had not received any communication from the White House about such a deployment and added that the president was “attempting to manufacture a crisis.”

Trump said Friday that New York City would be the next target for a federal policing effort, after Chicago.

Zohran Mamdani, the Democratic nominee in New York’s mayoral race, said in a telephone interview Sunday that New Yorkers were not looking for law enforcement help from Washington.

What New Yorkers want, Mamdani said, is “not to see the National Guard across the five boroughs. It’s to know that they could still have the same health care that they have today. It’s to know that they could still afford their groceries.”

He called federal cuts to social services “the crisis that D.C. is creating” and said there was not a single problem “they would be coming to solve.”

On Sunday morning, Trump wrote on social media that he was also considering sending National Guard troops to Baltimore, describing the city as “out of control” and “crime ridden.” In an appearance on CBS, Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a Democrat, pointed out that homicides in the city had dropped significantly and said the president was relying on “tropes” and “1980s scare tactics.”

In an Aug. 21 letter, Moore invited the president to join him on a “safety walk” in the state next month. Trump answered with a resounding “no” Sunday, writing in the social media post that he would send National Guard troops to “clean up the crime disaster” before setting foot in Baltimore.

The city’s mayor, Brandon Scott, said in a statement Friday that he and Baltimore residents “are not interested” in having the president “roll into Baltimore purely to stage a photo op.” But Scott also called for additional resources for FBI, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and Drug Enforcement Administration agents in Baltimore to continue the “investigatory work they are already doing in partnership with the Baltimore Police Department.” Moore said he would “absolutely” back Scott’s support for additional federal resources for those agents.

The Pentagon on Sunday deflected questions about plans to send National Guard troops to cities besides Washington.

“We won’t speculate on further operations,” the Defense Department said in a statement. “The Department is a planning organization and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel.”

Even as they push back on Trump’s dire descriptions of unfettered violence and lawlessness in blue cities, Democrats have been careful not to outright dismiss concerns about crime.

In Chicago, Emanuel said that prosecutors should pursue penalties for gun crimes and that law enforcement should continue to work to combat carjackings. But city leaders are treading the right path already, he said, and do not need the kind of assistance the federal government is offering.

“We have a strategy for fighting crime: more police on the beat and getting kids, gangs and guns off the street,” he said. “And that’s what has to be done.”

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., the House minority leader, said his party understood that voters wanted to see crime rates continue to drop in their communities. But he added that Trump had “no basis, no authority” to send federal troops or agents to Chicago.

“The American people understandably want safer communities,” Jeffries said. “We want to continue to make sure that crime can go down as it’s doing in Chicago, in New York, in Washington, D.C., and other places, and to do that we should support local law enforcement.”