(CNN) — As the Trump administration escalates its deployment of troops in the nation’s capital and vows similar moves elsewhere, leaders of largely Democratic cities across the country are pushing back.
From Boston to Los Angeles, President Donald Trump’s portrayal of the District of Columbia as a lawless wasteland to justify his military and law enforcement incursion is viewed as an opening salvo in a bid to undermine the autonomy of America’s biggest cities. On Friday, Trump promised to target Chicago next, then New York.
Many big city mayors, however, remain defiant, saying: Not so fast, Mr. President.
“Stop attacking our cities to hide your administration’s failures,” Boston Mayor Michelle Wu, a Democrat, said Tuesday, after Attorney General Pam Bondi threatened to prosecute local officials whose cities did not comply with the White House’s immigration crackdown. “Unlike the Trump administration, Boston follows the law.”
Bondi has made it clear the federal takeover in DC goes hand-in-hand with the administration’s hard-line immigration enforcement, using control over law enforcement in the district as a way to try to put an end to the city’s laws that protect undocumented migrants. The federal government could slash funding to cities that don’t comply and send in law enforcement as it has done in Los Angeles and DC, Bondi has said.
“Your attacks all come back to a common aim: The Trump Administration seeks to divide, isolate, and intimidate our cities, and make Americans fearful of one another,” Wu said.
On August 11, Trump announced the decision to declare a crime emergency and federalize DC’s police force, saying his administration was “going to restore the city back to the gleaming capital that everybody wants it to be.” Washington’s mayor and police chief were caught off guard, learning about the takeover for the first time as they watched Trump announce it live. Violent crime in the nation’s capital is at its lowest levels in decades, according to city officials.
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser called the president’s actions an “authoritarian push.”
The Home Rule Act of 1973 allows the president to take control of DC’s police for 48 hours if he “determines that special conditions of an emergency nature exist,” which requires the department’s use for federal purposes.
The president can retain control of the department for a longer period if he notifies the chairs and ranking members of the congressional committees that handle legislative matters pertaining to DC. Trump indicated he intends to do. Any request of control over the city’s police department for more than 30 days must be passed into law.
In other states, however, governors control guard troops. During emergencies the president can federalize guard troops, as Trump did in Los Angeles in June, a move the state of California has challenged in federal court.
“You look at Chicago, how bad it is. You look at Los Angeles, how bad it is,” Trump said during the announcement. “We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland.”
He repeated that message on Thursday, when he promoted his anti-crime initiative at a US Park Police facility in DC. He brought pizza and hamburgers to law enforcement officers who greeted him.
“We’re going to make it safe, and we’re going to then go on to other places, but we’re going to stay here for a while,” he said to dozens of law enforcement agents and National Guard members gathered outside the facility to hear him speak.
Speaking from the Oval Office on Friday, Trump vowed to “straighten” out Chicago next and “then we’ll help New York.”
“They’re wearing red hats, African American ladies, beautiful ladies, are saying, ‘Please, President Trump, come to Chicago,’” the president said.
And seeming to conflate his deployment of troops in DC with his takeover of the city’s police force, Trump on Friday said he can keep the National Guard in the nation’s capital “as long as I want” if he declares a national emergency.
Chicago mayor: Trump ‘stoking fear’
In Chicago, Mayor Brandon Johnson in a statement Friday said the city had received no formal communication from the White House concerning any deployments there. Johnson expressed “grave concerns” over an “unlawful deployment,” calling Trump’s approach “uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound.”
Johnson had earlier said the city “remains in regular communication” with fellow Democratic Gov. JB Pritzker about the federal government’s actions, according to the mayor’s office. Johnson and other US mayors have called on the Trump administration to restore more than $800 million in violence and crime prevention grants the DOJ has withheld to force states into cooperating with federal immigration enforcement efforts.
“These anti-violence programs have a direct impact on our work to reduce crime and violence in Chicago. Sending in the National Guard could destabilize our public safety efforts and would be counterproductive to rebuilding trust between residents and law enforcement,” Johnson’s office said in a statement. Chicago police said Friday homicides are down 31% this year and shootings 36%.
Johnson accused Trump of “stoking fear and division while criminalizing poverty.”
In response to the president’s pledge to target Chicago, Pritzker in a statement said Trump is “playing a game and creating a spectacle.”
“As Donald Trump attempts to create chaos that distracts from his problems, we will call it out for what it is,” Pritzker said. “Trump and Republicans are trying to distract from the pain they are causing working families – from tariffs raising the prices of everyday goods to stripping away healthcare and food from millions of Americans.”
LA viewed as ‘test case’ for expanding role of military
In Los Angeles, Trump defied Mayor Karen Bass by deploying National Guard troops and Marines to the city in June to protect federal buildings during protests against the administration’s immigration policies. In a democratic society, she said, law enforcement problems should never need military solutions.
“I believed then, as I believe now, that Los Angeles was a test case. I think DC is a test case as well,” Bass told CNN, warning that Trump’s incursion into the capital could be a precursor for other illegal power grabs.
“The president (can) say, ‘Well we can take over your city whenever we want and I am the commander in chief and I can use the troops whenever we want.’ I think that is an abuse of our troops, and I think it is an overreach of presidential powers.”
Trump signed a presidential memorandum deploying 2,000 National Guardsmen to Los Angeles in June to disperse the protests in response to immigration raids. Law enforcement in riot gear deployed tear gas and flash bangs to disperse crowds in the Los Angeles area over two days. Trump administration officials called the protesters “lawless rioters.”
Bass’ office in a statement said crime is down in the city and homelessness has dropped two consecutive years. Los Angeles officials said last month the city is on pace for the lowest homicide total in 60 years.
“The latest actions in LA and Washington DC seem to be for the purpose of testing state and cities’ willingness to accept the federal government taking power away from local leaders when there is simply no need,” the mayor’s statement said.
NYC mayor: ‘We got this under control’
“I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” Trump said the day he took federal control of DC’s police force and mobilized National Guard troops.
The warning comes as New York City is on track this year to record the lowest number of shootings and murders in its recorded history.
“We don’t need anyone to come in and take over our law enforcement apparatus. We have the finest police department on the globe,” Mayor Eric Adams told reporters one day after Trump’s DC announcement. “We got this under control.”
Still, authorities are preparing for the possibility of a federal takeover – ensuring civil disturbances are quickly and effectively handled to show there is no need for added enforcement, a state official told CNN this week.
Should a takeover attempt happen, state officials would be in communication with the National Guard but working to challenge the action in court, according to the official, who declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak on the matter.
State officials have already spoken about the possibility of a deployment with the local head of the National Guard in New York, the official said. While the National Guard must follow orders from Washington, the official said, they must also balance the limit of their capabilities since guardsmen are not trained as police officers.
About 1,000 guard members are already deployed on missions in New York state, including added security at transit hubs, according to the official. Discussions among state officials began after ICE demonstrations became heated in Los Angeles, the official said.
Baltimore’s mayor: ‘We have to be ready for anything’
In Baltimore, about 40 miles north of DC, Mayor Brandon Scott told CNN the city has had the fewest homicides in 50 years. He said it’s “notable” that the cities Trump mentioned all have Black mayors and historic drops in violent crime.
“What we know about this administration is that we have to be ready for anything,” Scott’s office said in a statement. “We can’t let the chaos coming from Washington distract us from the critically important work happening here in Baltimore and in cities across the country that is saving lives and reducing crime.”
At the same time, Trump’s DOJ has cut about $1.2 million from community violence intervention programs, according to the statement.
“Our federal law enforcement partners have real jobs to do — in partnership with state and local leaders — to investigate and prevent crime,” the statement added.
“The President doesn’t care about stopping crime. He’s slashing funding for organizations that are working to prevent crime in communities nationwide — yet he’s claiming the Black mayors of DC, Baltimore, Chicago, and Oakland are the problem. It’s all a distraction from his own failures: the chaos of the economy, the Epstein files, and America’s falling standing in the world.”
In Oakland, Mayor Barbara Lee dismissed Trump’s characterization of the city as “wrong and not grounded in facts, but in fearmongering.”
“This is not leadership — it’s an attempt to score cheap political points by tearing down communities he doesn’t understand,” she said in a statement, CNN affiliate KRON-TV reported.
Earlier this month, the Oakland Police Department reported that violent crime was down 29% this year through June 30. Homicides dropped 21%, rapes decreased 24% and robberies declined 41%.
‘He better not try it in Philly’
In Philadelphia, another largely Democratic city whose violent crime has decreased substantially since post-pandemic peaks, District Attorney Larry Krasner held his own press conference in a West Philadelphia church one day after Trump’s announcement.
“The only emergency I can think of for public safety is what we call D.J.T.,” the progressive prosecutor said, flanked by spiritual leaders. “Donald J. Trump is the emergency right now in big cities in America.”
Krasner told CNN the current administration would have no legal grounds to federalize the Philadelphia Police Department, and there is no reason to justify sending in the National Guard.
“He may think he’s gonna try it in other places, but the fact is legally he has much less of a right to do any of this in other cities, and he better not try it in Philly,” Krasner told CNN.
Homicides, shootings, and armed robberies are down 16%, 19%, and 20%, respectively, in Philadelphia in 2025 compared to the same period last year – and down even more compared to 2021 highs, according to police department data.
“We have seen a record drop in crime in urban America … Philadelphia actually leads the nation in the biggest reduction in violent crime today versus where we were a few years ago,” Congressman Brendan Boyle, who represents Philadelphia, told CNN.
“The timing doesn’t make any sense in this respect,” said the Democratic representative when asked if he’s worried about Trump’s warning.
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker’s office declined to comment to CNN on the ongoing federal takeover in DC or any hypothetical actions in Philly.
In response to Trump’s actions in DC, Democratic state Sen. Art Haywood, who represents part of Philadelphia, released a memo announcing the “Protecting PA Police Act.”
Haywood’s office explained the intent of the legislation would be to explicitly prevent any federal takeover of “1,000 municipal police departments (or) our state police.”
Further details or a draft of the proposed legislation have not been released.
“This effort is about defending our police and protecting the dignity of our neighbors,” Haywood in a statement to CNN. “Strong, trusted relationships between police and residents are essential to public safety.”
Though unpopular among DC residents – 79% oppose the federal law enforcement incursion, a new Washington Post-Schar School poll said – Trump took to Truth Social on Friday, praising the effort: “Washington, D.C. is SAFE AGAIN! The crowds are coming back, the spirit is high, and our D.C. National Guard and Police are doing a fantastic job.”
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