President Trump again threatens to deploy troops to Chicago, a move Mayor Johnson says would be ‘unlawful’

President Donald Trump Friday suggested that federal troops could be deployed to Chicago amid his efforts to crack down on crime, repeating a threat that both Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson have said would be illegal.

During a news conference Friday in the Oval Office, Trump said Chicago could be next to receive federal intervention, similar to Washington, D.C., where nearly 2,000 National Guard troops have been deployed to address what his administration has described as a surge in violent crime, even though D.C. officials say crime is falling in their city.

“Chicago is a mess, you have an incompetent mayor, grossly incompetent, and we will straighten that one out next,” Trump said referring to Johnson. “That will be our next one after this, and it won’t even be tough.”

In a statement Friday afternoon, Johnson said deploying federal troops to Chicago would be against the law and “undermine” the city’s progress in reducing crime.

“We take President Trump’s statements seriously, but to be clear the City has not received any formal communication from the Trump administration regarding additional federal law enforcement or military deployments to Chicago,” the mayor said. “Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the City of Chicago.

“The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” Johnson added. “Unlawfully deploying the National Guard to Chicago has the potential to inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement when we know that trust between police and residents is foundational to building safer communities.”

Trump said people in Chicago are “screaming for us to come.”

In a social media post Friday, Pritzker wrote, “Things People are NOT begging for: 1. An authoritarian power grab of major cities.”

Trump made similar threats during a news conference last week, calling Chicago a “disaster” and both Johnson and Pritzker “incompetent.”

After Trump announced his decision Aug. 11 to deploy troops in the nation’s capital and warned Chicago could be next, Pritzker dismissed the president’s warning, saying the president “has absolutely no right and no legal ability to send troops into the city of Chicago.”

Pritzker cited an 1878 federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act, which essentially prohibits the federal government from using military personnel to enforce domestic policy or participate in civilian law enforcement unless explicitly authorized by law.

There is no indication Trump will follow through with his threat. However, if he at some point does, deployment of National Guard troops could come swiftly. The first National Guard troops began arriving on the streets of Washington Aug. 12, a day after he announced he would initiate the deployment to the capital and take over its police department.

ACLU of Illinois spokesperson Ed Yohnka said Trump’s militarization of cities is “not about public safety.”

“Donald Trump doesn’t know anything about public safety, and he doesn’t understand anything about policing, as he demonstrates every single time he talks about the issue,” Yohnka said. “The truth is that public safety is a serious issue that needs serious people, and that isn’t someone who believes that the answer is a militaristic invasion of our city.”

Yohnka said ramping up public safety in cities requires access to economic opportunities and social services for their residents — programs that Trump’s administration has slashed.

“[Trump] has one tool, force. It is the only thing that he’s ever seen,” Yohnka said. “What people in Illinois, what people in Chicago have grappled with and know, is that we need to use a number of different tools to approach the issue of public safety.

“Because every single resident of Illinois, and certainly every single resident of Chicago, wants their community and their neighborhood and their block to be safe. Sending in troops won’t do that.”