The Pentagon is engaged on plans to deploy the U.S. military to Chicago as President Donald Trump says he’s cracking down on crime, homelessness and undocumented immigration, TheWashington Post reported on Saturday (August 23, 2025).
The Defence Department planning, in the works for weeks, includes a number of choices, together with mobilising no less than a number of thousand members of the National Guard as quickly as September, the Post reported, citing officers conversant in the matter.
“Chicago is a mess,” Mr. Trump, a Republican, informed reporters on Friday (August 22, 2025), deriding its Mayor as he continued his assaults on cities run by Democratic politicians. “And we’ll straighten that one out probably next.”
The Pentagon mentioned in a press release late on Saturday (August 23, 2025), “We won’t speculate on further operations. The department is a planning organisation and is continuously working with other agency partners on plans to protect federal assets and personnel.”
The White House didn’t instantly reply to Reuters’ request for touch upon the Post report.
J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic Governor of Illinois, which incorporates Chicago, mentioned in a press release the state had obtained no outreach from the federal authorities on whether or not it wanted help. He mentioned there was no emergency warranting a National Guard or different military deployment.
“Donald Trump is attempting to manufacture a crisis, politicise Americans who serve in uniform and continue abusing his power to distract from the pain he is causing working families,” Mr. Pritzker mentioned.
A spokesperson for Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark. On Friday (August 22, 2025) Mr. Johnson mentioned the town had grave issues in regards to the affect of any illegal deployment of National Guard troops.
“The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for and unsound,” the Mayor mentioned, including that over the previous yr, homicides in Chicago have fallen by greater than 30%, robberies by 35% and shootings by nearly 40%.
At Mr. Trump’s request final weekend, the Republican governors of three states mentioned they have been sending a whole bunch of National Guard troops a whole bunch of miles to Washington, D.C.
The President has portrayed the nation’s capital as a metropolis awash in crime, though Justice Department information exhibits violent crime hit a 30-year low final yr in Washington, D.C., a self-governing federal district beneath the jurisdiction of Congress.
In June, Mr. Trump ordered 700 Marines and 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles, in opposition to the needs of California’s Democratic governor, throughout protests over mass immigration raids by federal officers.
