By Will Weissert
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump suggested Wednesday that New Orleans could be his next target for deploying the National Guard to fight crime, potentially expanding the number of cities around the nation where he may send federal law enforcement.
Trump has already said he plans to send the National Guard into Chicago and Baltimore following his administration deploying troops and federal agents to patrol the streets of Washington, D.C., last month.
“So we’re making a determination now,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office during a meeting with Polish President Karol Nawrocki. “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.”
The White House reports more than 1,760 arrests citywide since the president first announced he was mobilizing federal forces on Aug. 7.
Trump’s latest comments came a day after he declared “We’re going in” and suggested that the National Guard might soon be headed for Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, and Baltimore.
“So we’re going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We’ll straighten that out in about two weeks,” Trump said. “It’ll take us two weeks, easier than D.C.”
“Crime is down in New Orleans,” City Councilmember Oliver Thomas, who is also a mayoral candidate, said via text message. “That would seem to be very political or a major overreaction!”
Trump, meanwhile, has spoken against Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker for not requesting that the National Guard be deployed.
“We could straighten out Chicago. All they have to do is ask us to go into Chicago. If we don’t have the support of some of these politicians, but I’ll tell you who is supporting us, the people of Chicago,” Trump said Wednesday
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Associated Press writer Jack Brook in New Orleans contributed to this report.
