Trump threat to send National Guard to Chicago gets pushback: 'A terrible idea'
Trump threat to send National Guard to Chicago gets pushback: 'A terrible idea'
Illinois leaders have pushed back after President Trump floated the idea of sending in National Guard troops to Chicago to combat crime.
CHICAGO - Illinois leaders are pushing back against President Trump’s threat to send National Guard troops to Chicago to combat crime.
Some law enforcement leaders said federal help is welcome, but Trump’s current plan could spell trouble.
What they're saying:
The pushback isn’t just political, as some law enforcement leaders and even some Trump supporters said the president should press pause.
Chicago Ald. Nick Sposato (38th Ward) is a former city firefighter and Trump’s strongest supporter on the City Council. But on the issue of the sending in the National Guard, he said the president has it wrong.
"I think it's a terrible idea," Sposato said. "They don't have policing powers. They don't really know what to do. More importantly, you're putting 18, 19-year-old kids on streets they're unfamiliar with, with M16s. I see it as a recipe for disaster."
Sposato did not attend Monday’s large press conference, where Gov. JB Pritzker, Mayor Brandon Johnson, and other Democrats slammed Trump’s idea, threatened to sue the administration, and called the threats political intimidation.
"This is not about fighting crime," Pritzker said. "This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals."
Dig deeper:
Johnson and Pritzker have touted the 30% reduction in murders in Chicago so far this year compared to the same time last year. The city is on track to finish 2025 with the fewest murders since 2014.
That’s when Gary McCarthy was the superintendent of the Chicago Police Department. Now leading the police department in suburban Willowbrook, he said the National Guard isn’t trained to do what sworn police officers do.
"They're not going to respond to calls for service," McCarthy said. "They're going to be doing car stops. They're gonna be doing street stops. They might not even be armed, and as such, they can be targets."
Federal law says a state’s governor must request the National Guard. But the president can deploy them in extreme situations, like an insurrection.
National Guard members have historically been called up for major events or protests to guard infrastructure and help with crowd control.
But Sposato and McCarthy said Chicago’s political leaders should get on the phone with the president and convince him to come up with a better plan.
"I don't know who's got the direct line to the president other than probably the governor," Sposato said. "So instead, we're fighting one publicity stunt with another publicity stunt."
McCarthy added, "At the end of the day, this is not good for the country as far as Democrats and Republicans at war, and there has to be a bipartisan method to get these things done."
Current CPD Supt. Larry Snelling was not available for comment on Tuesday. He has not issued any public statements on the president’s plans.
Fox 32 tried to get more information from the White House on plans for the National Guard deployment, but has not received a response.