President Donald Trump on Friday said that Chicago will likely be the next city for a crime crackdown after his administration took over the police force in Washington, D.C. and deployed the National Guard.
Trump signed an executive order on August 11 declaring a crime emergency in the District of Columbia.
The White House said that the president determined that special conditions of an emergency nature exist, requiring the use of the Metropolitan Police Department’s services to maintain law and order, protect federal buildings, national monuments and other federal property.
The order invoked the president’s authority under the District of Columbia Self-Government and Governmental Reorganization Act to require the mayor to make the services of the Metropolitan Police Department available to the president, the White House said.
The order delegated the authority to the U.S. Attorney General, who will also monitor the emergency conditions and provide updates to Trump.
Approximately 2,000 National Guard troops have been deployed to patrol the streets with law enforcement.
Trump has already claimed success less than two weeks after the D.C. takeover.
“And it’s very safe right now. There’s been no murders since I started,” he said on Friday while visiting the People’s House Exhibit.
“A lot of people say, well, where is he going from there? Well, I have calls from politicians begging me to go to Chicago, begging me to go to New York, begging me to go to Los Angeles,” Trump said.
Shortly after the visit to the People’s House, Trump spoke to reporters in the Oval Office and a reporter asked him where he had concrete plans to go next for a crime takeover.
“When we’re ready, we’ll go in and straighten out Chicago just like we did D.C.,” Trump said.
The president said Chicago is a “great city” but it’s “very dangerous” and he “hates to see what’s happened in Chicago.”
“Chicago is a mess. We’ll straighten that one out probably next, that’ll be our next one after this. And it won’t even be tough,” Trump said.
Trump said he has had calls from Democrats asking him to come to their cities because they have “lost control of their city.”
He also called Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson “grossly incompetent.”
Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said he is not afraid but is also not daring the Trump administration to come to the state.
“I’m just saying, they don’t have a right. Federal and state law — separate endeavors. They don’t have a right to do the things they’re threatening to do,” Pritzker said.
The White House said the surge in violent crime in Washington D.C. is a “national disgrace” that threatens public safety and federal operations.
Earlier this month while discussing the “no cash bail” law in D.C., Trump said that every place in America with cashless bail is a “disaster.”
“That’s what started the problem in New York and they don’t change it, they don’t want to change it. That’s what started it in Chicago. I mean, bad politicians started it, bad leadership started it. But that was the one thing that’s central, no cash bail. Somebody murders somebody and they’re out on no cash bail before the day is out,” Trump said.
The president said he is going to end cashless bail in Chicago by changing the statute.
“I spoke with Pam and Todd and everybody. We’re going to change the statute and I’m going to have to get the Republicans to vote because the Democrats are weak on crime, totally weak on crime. They don’t know why. They want it to stop because they get mugged, too. But we’re going to change no cash bail. We’re going to change the statute and get rid of some of the other things and we’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and Senate to vote,” Trump said on August 11.
The Pretrial Fairness Act of the SAFE-T Act, which ended cash bail in Illinois, went into effect in the state in September 2023.
The law creates a strong presumption in favor of release that cannot be overcome unless the court finds a defendant “poses a real and present threat to any person or the community” and no “combination of conditions” can mitigate the threat posed.
The law also lists specific offenses that are detainable.
Offenses that are non-detainable mean that a judge cannot hold a defendant no matter the circumstances or the defendant’s criminal history.
Certain non-detainable offenses include battering a police officer, pointing a gun at a person and battering an elderly or disabled person.