"Authoritarian attacks": Trump could send troops to Chicago in September

The National Guard is already deployed in the US capital, Washington, on Trump's orders. Chicago could follow suit as early as September, according to a media report. Top Democratic politicians are reacting with horror.

According to a report in the Washington Post, the Pentagon plans to deploy the National Guard in Chicago as early as September to combat crime. The plan includes several options, including deploying several thousand members of the U.S. Army Reserve unit to the third-largest U.S. city in the state of Illinois, the newspaper reported, citing officials familiar with the matter. The White House and the Pentagon declined to comment, according to the newspaper.

The Department of Defense said it did not want to speculate about future operations. Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, accused Republican US President Donald Trump of creating chaos. "After using Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., as testing grounds for authoritarian overreach, Trump is now openly toying with the idea of ​​taking over other states and cities," Pritzker said.

On Platform X, he wrote that Trump and the Republicans were trying to portray their party as a party of law and order. "That couldn't be further from the truth."

Trump: "Chicago is a mess"

Most recently, Trump activated the National Guard to curb what he claimed was out-of-control crime in the US capital, Washington. He also placed the local police under federal control. His actions in Washington are highly controversial – there have already been protests. Police statistics provide no evidence of an increase in crime.

In June, despite protests in Los Angeles, Trump deployed 4,000 members of the California National Guard and 700 active-duty Marines following demonstrations against deportation raids by the immigration enforcement agency ICE. Trump had already said on Friday: "We're going to make our cities very, very safe. Chicago is a mess." He questioned the city's Democratic mayor's competence.

Has the procedure been planned for a long time?

Officials familiar with the matter told the Washington Post that a military intervention in Chicago has long been planned, likely in conjunction with expanded Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations to search for undocumented migrants.

While the states typically control the National Guard, in special situations—such as natural disasters, civil unrest, and domestic emergencies—the president can place it under federal command. In the special case of the U.S. capital, which is not a separate state, the National Guard is directly subordinate to the president anyway.