Chicago Mayor Pushes Back On Trump’s National Guard Threat
‘The Guard Is Not Needed’: Chicago Mayor Pushes Back On Trump’s National Guard Threat
Mayor Brandon Johnson is pushing back against President Donald Trump’s threats to deploy National Guard troops in Chicago.
On Sunday, Mayor Johnson told NBC News he’s trying to find legal options to prevent Trump from sending troops to take over the city.
“The guard is not needed,” Chicago Mayor Brandon Jonson told NBC News. “This is not the role of our military. The brave men and women who signed up to serve our country did not sign up to occupy American cities.”
Trump has framed his deployment of the National Guard in U.S. cities as a fight against crime, but Mayor Johnson says that crime is down in his Chicago and critics are calling Trump’s action political overreach.
According to crime data from the Chicago police, murders have declined 31%, shootings have dropped by 36% and vehicle thefts are down 26% all in the last year.
“The things that we’re doing in Chicago by investing in people, youth employment, mental health care, services, building more affordable homes, making sure that our detectives bureau has all the resources that it needs … that’s why we’re seeing the results that we are experiencing right now,” Johnson told NBC News. “Occupying our cities with the military — that’s not how we build safe and affordable communities.”
If Trump does send troops to Chicago, he will try to use the playbook from his Washington, D.C., takeover and flood the streets with law enforcement.
As previously reported by NewsOne, earlier this month, Trump ordered a seven-day surge of federal law enforcement in the capital, citing several high-profile incidents, including the assault of Edward Coristine, a 19-year-old former employee of the Department of Government Efficiency. Coristine was attacked in an attempted carjacking on Aug. 3, according to reports.
The president used the incident to justify the increased federal presence and floated the idea of federalizing the Metropolitan Police Department.
According to a White House official, up to 450 federal officers were deployed to D.C. in one weekend, including as many as 130 FBI agents, despite a 26% decrease in violent crime in the city.
Trump has also said cities with Black mayors, including Baltimore, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Oakland, are plagued with crime and “horribly run.”
Despite Trump’s racist tones and rhetoric, Major Johnson, as well as other city and state officials, are preparing to fight. The mayor’s office released a statement over the weekend saying it’s working with Illinois’ governor and Cook County “evaluating all of our legal options to protect the people of Chicago from unconstitutional federal overreach.”
Let’s keep an eye on this space.
SEE ALSO:
Trump’s National Guard Deployment Is A Direct Attack On Black DC
Trump Administration Partners With Conservative Nonprofit PragerU To Replace PBS
‘The Guard Is Not Needed’: Chicago Mayor Pushes Back On Trump’s National Guard Threat was originally published on newsone.com
