White House pushes National Guard troops despite Pritzker pushback

There is no reason for Americans to live in fear as President Donald Trump floats mobilizing National Guard troops to other cities to address crime like he has in Washington, the White House insists. 

While Illinois leaders, including Gov. JB Pritzker, have made it clear they aren’t interested in receiving National Guard troops in Chicago, the White House said it would welcome requests from Republican and Democratic leaders for additional law enforcement support to reduce crime in American cities. 

“This is our message to Americans in Democrat-run cities nationwide: decline is a choice,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Thursday. “You don’t have to live in constant fear of being robbed, raped or murdered. Your leaders are lying to you — and they have been failing you for decades.”

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“Governor Pritzker should spend less time demonizing the police, more time trying to recruit more police, and more time trying to call the president of the United States to get crime in his city under control,” Leavitt said. “The president wants to allow law enforcement, whether it’s state, local, federal, to do their jobs, to arrest criminals, to put them behind bars, and to remove public safety threats from American communities, he’ll continue to do that.” 

Pritzker, a Democrat who hasn’t ruled out running for president in 2028, has pushed back against the possibility of National Guard troops arriving in Chicago to address crime, and said Monday that the move would be “unconstitutional” and “un-American.” 

“Donald Trump wants to use the military to occupy a U.S. city, punish its dissidents and score political points,” Pritzker said. “If this were happening in any other country, we would have no trouble calling it what it is — a dangerous power grab.” 

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Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson said in a Friday statement that crime is down in Chicago, and said the city in the past year has reduced homicides by more than 30%, robberies by 35% and shootings by almost 40%.

But the White House has continued to point to local reports that Chicago has had the most murders of any U.S. city for the past 13 years, as of the most recent 2024 data.

“For 13 consecutive years, Chicago has had the most murders of any U.S. city,” Leavitt said Thursday. “This is JB Pritzker’s legacy, by the way.” 

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“He should put politics aside,” Leavitt said. “He should pick up the phone and call this president, who would be more than happy to do right by law-abiding American residents in the city of Chicago. And we hope that he will.” 

Chicago does not have the most murders per capita, and isn’t listed in the top five cities for murder per capita in compilations of 2024 FBI data. 

Trump disclosed plans Aug. 11 to mobilize troops from the D.C. National Guard and to federalize the Metropolitan Police Department to address crime in the nation’s capital. Since then, Trump has indicated that he might dispatch National Guard troops to other cities in the U.S., including Chicago. 

“We go in, we will solve Chicago within one week, maybe less,” Trump told reporters Monday morning. “But within one week we’ll have no crime in Chicago, like no crime in D.C.”