Photo: Alamy
President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that New Orleans could be the next city to see National Guard troops deployed to combat crime, signaling a possible expansion of federal intervention beyond Washington and other major cities.
Speaking in the Oval Office alongside Polish President Karol Nawrocki, Trump said his administration is weighing options.
“So we’re making a determination now,” he told reporters. “Do we go to Chicago? Do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad.”
Trump has already pledged to send the Guard into Chicago and Baltimore following last month’s deployment of troops and federal agents to Washington, D.C. He says that the capital has been turned into a “safe zone,” pointing to more than 1,760 arrests since federal forces began patrolling on Aug. 7.
Because Washington is a federal district, Trump had the authority to assume control of the local police force for 30 days. Expanding similar tactics into Democratic-led cities would mark a significant escalation.
“So we’re going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem,” Trump said. “We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks. It’ll take us two weeks, easier than D.C.”
The comments came a day after Trump said, “We’re going in,” while signaling that Chicago and Baltimore could be next despite pushback from state and local officials. New Orleans would be the first city to receive Guard troops in a Republican-led state.
Gov. Jeff Landry posted on social media that Louisiana would “take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, whose district includes suburban areas near New Orleans, praised Trump’s approach.
“The citizens of New Orleans, and the millions of tourists who come here, deserve that same level of security,” Scalise wrote online. “We should all be in favor of increased safety for our citizens and lower crime.”