Trump says federal troops are headed to Chicago. ‘We’re going in.’

WASHINGTON ‒ President Donald Trump declared he plans to send the National Guard into Chicago after the city experienced a violent Labor Day weekend.

“We’re going in,” Trump said during a briefing at the Oval Office on Sept. 2. “I didn’t say when.”

“Look, I have an obligation,” the president told reporters. “This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation.”

Trump’s comments come after he repeatedly targeted California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, and Illinois’ JB Pritzker, all Democratic governors who have been outspoken against him and are possible 2028 presidential candidates.

The president later referred to Chicago ‒ and also Baltimore ‒ each as a “hell hole.”

At least eight people were killed and another 50 people were injured in shootings across the city over the weekend, according to Chicago Police Department data. Trump referenced the deadly holiday weekend, calling Chicago “the worst and most dangerous city in the World, by far,” in a post on Truth Social.

“Pritzker needs help badly, he just doesn’t know it yet,” said Trump, who has publicly rebuffed Trump’s advances to send in troops. “I will solve the crime problem fast, just like I did in DC. Chicago will be safe again, and soon. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

The president later followed up with another Truth Social post proclaiming, “CHICAGO IS THE MURDER CAPITAL OF THE WORLD!” It is not known when the president could send in the troops.

‘None of this is about fighting crime’: Illinois responds to Trump’s troop plans

Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Johnson respond

During the Oval Office briefing, Trump said all that Pritzker has to do is call him. “I’d be honored to take his call,” Trump said. “All (Pritzker) has to do is say, ‘Sir, we need help, it’s out of control.’ Everyone knows it is. He’s not kidding anyone.”

But Pritzker quickly pushed back on the president’s comments, telling reporters during his own briefing in Chicago on Sept. 2, “No, I will not call the president, asking him to send troops to Chicago. I’ve made that clear already.”

The weekend violence comes as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on Aug. 30 that he said lays out “how we can stand up against this tyranny.” The mayor said the Chicago police would not assist the National Guard with immigration enforcement or related activities such as conducting traffic stops and manning checkpoints, according to the order

“This president is not going to come in and deputize our police department,” Johnson said at the Aug. 30 news conference.

Chicago reported 278 homicides in 2025, according to city data. However, Chicago has experienced a remarkable drop in gun violence so far this year, with a 37% drop in shootings compared to this same period last year and 60% versus 2021, the city’s data cited.

Vice President JD Vance, in an exclusive interview last week with USA TODAY, said Trump isn’t planning a long-term military occupation of American cities such as Chicago, but added the National Guard troops will need enough time to reduce crime.

“We don’t want indefinitely to put National Guardsmen on the streets of our cities. We just want to make those streets more safe,” said Vance on Aug. 27.

Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the nation’s oldest civil rights group, told USA TODAY the president and his administration are targeting places such as Chicago and Baltimore because of their success in turning the corner on shootings and homicides.

“The lies about crime, which are very racialized, and we should acknowledge it as such,” Wiley said. “There’s a lot of racist tropes in even the suggestion of where there are public safety concerns and where there are not.”

Chicago bracing for National Guard: Preparing for federal troops, Chicago mayor says city will stand up to Trump’s ‘tyranny’

Trump administration is also preparing to send more ICE to Chicago

Trump previously threatened to send troops to Chicago, just as he did in Washington, DC and Los Angeles. Meanwhile, Chicago was also bracing for a federal immigration enforcement operation.

Pritzker said on Sept. 2 that he expects agents are planning to “raid Latino communities and say they’re targeting violent criminals.” The governor added that Trump “will be looking for any excuse to put active duty military on our streets, supposedly to protect ICE.”

Pritzker added that Illinois state officials “have reason to believe that the Trump administration has already begun staging the Texas National Guard for deployment in Illinois.”

Earlier, Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton told CNN on Sept. 2 that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers are coming to Chicago this week.

“This is not about public safety, and this is not about making our residents safer. What Donald Trump wants to happen is he wants to manufacture a crisis,” Stratton said. “He wants to make sure that he can cause some sort of crisis that he can say he’s coming to the rescue.”

Johnson, Chicago’s mayor, stood beside Pritzker at the Sept. 2 briefing and said, “Chicago will have a violence problem as long as red states continue to have a gun problem.”

Johnson said Trump will send in his “own secret police force” when his poll numbers are sinking and when his jobs reports show a stagnant economy, or when the president “needs another distraction from his failures.”

The mayor said Chicago doesn’t have “an immigration crisis, but a gun crisis,” adding that Chicago police have taken more than 24,000 guns off the street since he took office in 2023.

Johnson then asked why the Trump administration “gutted” funding from an agency such as the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, which helps prevent gun trafficking, he argued, while adding funding to ICE and Border Patrol.

“And the president could care less about the real solutions…Violence in Chicago isn’t about having too many immigrants. It’s because we have too many guns,” Johnson said, offering Trump a message. “Stop posting Truth Socials. Stop making statements. Stop threatening to send troops or ICE.

“Stop defunding our communities,” Johnson concluded. “Just do your job and end the trafficking of guns into our city.”

More than just using statistics

Democratic-aligned strategists have warned against citing data and statistics alone, saying it runs the risk of appearing tone-deaf, much in the way voters repeatedly said they didn’t feel inflation was decreasing fast enough, despite the positive trends.

Instead, many have leaned into how other major investments, such as job creation, youth programs, and affordable housing, have helped spawn public safety.

But Trump thinks otherwise.

“I would save Gov. Moore a call. I watched him over the weekend say what Baltimore needs is housing,” Trump told reporters on Sept. 2. “No, they don’t need housing. What they need is to get rid of criminals. They have hardcore criminals.”

Meanwhile, other progressive critics have called out the administration’s actions as an abuse of federal power that should alarm local and state governments.

Trump deploying guard members into Chicago will likely be deemed illegal by the courts, much in the same way it was in Los Angeles by a federal judge this week, said Norm Eisen, an ethics expert who serves as executive chair of Democracy Defenders Fund.

“This is not lawful, it is not democratic, and it is not American,” he said.

But, one Chicago city leader, 15th Ward Alderman Raymond Lopez, posted on social media on Sept. 2, criticizing fellow city and state leaders about their reluctance to allow the National Guard to come to Chicago after the violent weekend.

“If @POTUS is paying, let (the) National Guard come here. Not in our communities, but protecting assets & high priority targets downtown so that our @Chicago_Police don’t have to babysit the Bean or Buckingham Fountain for eight hours a day. Our officers can return to their districts & answer the thousands of 911 calls logged but never answered,” Lopez wrote on X. “A month without a murder should be everyone’s goal!”

Contributing: Maureen Groppe and Zac Anderson

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Trump plans to send National Guard to Chicago amid violence