CHICAGO (AP) — President Donald Trump on Friday said Chicago is likely to be the next target in his efforts to crack down on crime, homelessness and illegal immigration.
Trump has shown that Midwest cities can get treated the same way as what he did. Washington, DC, He deployed a troop of 2,000 people on the streets.
“I think Chicago will be our next,” Trump told White House reporters, adding that he would later “and help New York.”
Comments from when the Pentagon began ordering troops in Washington on Friday came Carrying a firearmthere were no obvious signs that they were facing a threat demanding that they carry weapons.
Trump has repeatedly described some of the nation’s largest cities run by Democrats. Black mayor A majority minority group – dangerous and dirty.
He singled out Chicago on Friday, calling it “confusion,” and residents said that despite a massive decline in violent crime, they would “scream us for us to come.”
Trump’s proposal that Chicago could be the next target for criminal crackdowns has not worked well with Illinois office holders.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said his office has not received formal communications from the Trump administration regarding the deployment of military or federal law enforcement in Chicago, but there are “significant concerns about the impact of illegal deployment of the National Guard forces.”
Johnson called Trump’s approach “uncooperative, unsaid, unhealthy” and argued that it “can inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement.”
It is unclear how Trump will pursue his efforts in Chicago. This is similar to his approach to DC.
But the president’s eldest son said it might be time to look at the entire city in the Pacific Northwest. in I’ll be interviewing Newsmax on ThursdayDonald Trump Jr., has denounced Democrats’ murder rates.
“We probably need to deploy a tour to Portland in Seattle.
In a post from X, titled “What People Are Ggging,” Democrat Gov. JB Pritzker included cheap food, cutting Medicaid and food aid for low-income households, and the release of a file held by the federal government in Jeffrey Epstein, a convicted sex trafficker and former Trump friend.
What they are not pleading about is that they “deprive the authoritarian power of major cities.”
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, a second Democrat in the Senate, is known as Trump’s Washington, DC strategy, “Political Theatre.” He said Chicago is a “beautiful and vibrant city with people of all life” and proposed pursuing a “proven, bipartisan solution” to further reduce crime.
“These unprecedented threats from President Trump are merely gaining the power to distract him from his disastrous policies,” Durbin said in a statement.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a combat veteran of the Army National Guard, criticized what he called Trump’s military misuse to “threate Americans in our community.”
Illinois Democratic Party Chairman Lisa Hernandez called Trump’s comments “aggressive and false” and argued that his rhetoric reflects history. Racist tales of urban crime.
“The Chicagoans are not pleading for him,” she told The Associated Press.
Trump has been aiming for Chicago for more than a decade, including the 2024 and 2016 presidential campaigns. He repeatedly compared the city to Afghanistan, and in 2017 he threatened to “send the federal government” for gun violence in the city, despite a historic decline in violent crime in recent years.
Violent crime in Chicago fell sharply in the first half of the year, and the sharpest decline for more than a decade, according to city data. Shooting and murder fell by more than 30% in the first half of 2025, compared to the same period last year, with violent crime overall down by more than 22%.
Johnson touted the city’s approach to violent crime, claiming in a statement to the Associated Press that “our community is the safest when it comes to fully investing in housing, community safety and education.” While Trump turns his eyes to the military, he said Chicago is investing in mental health services, community-based intervention, increased minimum wages and improved affordable housing.
Johnson said if he wants to make cities safer, Trump should recover $158 million to cut violence booking programs in cities such as Chicago.
“There are so many things the federal government can do to help reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending the troops isn’t one of them,” he said.
Rev. Donovan Price, a local advocate for gun crime victims, stressed that community-based anti-violence programs are key to reducing gun violence in Chicago, not militarism.
“Leave us out of our city,” he said. “This is not a federal issue. We live this every day. We know what the community needs.”
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O’Connor reported from Springfield, Illinois. Prices reported from Washington, DC
