(Washington) Washington today and soon Chicago and New York: Donald Trump announced on Friday his intention to deploy in these two democratic mega -cities the federal police, officially to fight against crime which he claims to be endemic.
Simultaneously, a Pentagon official said that the more than 1900 soldiers of the National Guard deployed for ten days in the Federal Capital Washington would very soon be “armed”.
On August 11, the American president, elected on a program to combat immigration and crime, had announced that he was placed ordering of Washington under the authority of his administration and that he deployed the National Guard, a reserve military body.
According to the Republican, the federal capital, which is not attached to any state and enjoys a single institutional status, is “invaded by violent gangs” and must be “cleaned”.
Democrat mayor, Muriel Bowser, who runs some 700,000 citizens, had to let it go but refuted a flambé of violence, ensuring on the contrary that the rate of crimes and crimes was this year “at its lowest level for 30 years”.
Photo Kevin Lamarque, Reuters archives
Members of the National Guard are on the guard outside the Washington Union station on August 19, 2025.
But Donald Trump does not believe it.
In a long intervention from the Oval Office, initially devoted to the Soccer World Cup in North America in 2026, he promised that his administration would continue to “make our cities very, very safe”.
“Authoritarian power”
“Chicago is the mess”, the city is led by “a particularly incompetent mayor”, accused Trump about this great city of Illinois, on the verge of the Great Lakes.
“The people of Chicago cry so that we come. They wear red caps like this. Magnificent African-American women say: “Please President Trump, come to Chicago”, said the 79-year-old billionaire, wearing a red cap of the slogan “Trump was right on everything”.
Photo Jacquelyn Martin, Associated Press
Donald Trump answered journalists’ questions in the oval office.
“Chicago will be the next one and then we will help New York,” said the president.
In response, the Democratic Governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, wrote on his account X that “people do not ask for an authoritarian power to take up the main cities” in the United States.
In Washington, “on the orders of the Secretary of Defense (Pete Hegseth), members of the National Guard, in support of the mission to reduce the crime rate in the capital of our country will soon be on a mission with their service weapons,” said a Pentagon official, under the cover of anonymity.
Armored in Washington
He said that the command of the National Guard in Washington “retained authority over the police in coordination with the municipal police and the federal police” other agencies dispatched to the capital.
There are currently more than 1900 soldiers of the National Guard – some in front of their armored vehicles in front of the city station or along the immense National Esplanade Mall, where the main institutions and monuments of the country stand.
In addition to the first 800 soldiers, republican states have these days, at the request of Donald Trump, sent troops to Washington, including Virginia-Western, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee.
Before Washington, the American president had already deployed the National Guard as well as Marines in Los Angeles, California, a state led by Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, in response to major demonstrations against the anti-immigration policy of the Republican government.
It was then the first deployment in this way against the will of a local governor since 1965.
