Politics

Johnson, Pritzker Dismiss Trump’s Threat to Send National Guard to Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson and Gov. JB Pritzker dismissed President Donald Trump’s threat to send the National Guard to Chicago, the latest in a long series of threats issued by the president against Chicago and its leaders.

Trump announced Monday that he was placing the Washington, D.C. police department under direct federal control and deploying the National Guard to the streets of the nation’s capital to fight crime, which is at a 30-year low.

“Other cities are hopefully watching this,” Trump said, specifically citing New York City, Los Angeles and Chicago. “They’re all watching, just like everyone’s watching here, they’re all watching, and maybe they’ll self-clean up.”

Murders in Chicago are down 31% during the first seven months of 2025, as compared with the same period a year ago, according to CPD data. Shootings are down 37%, according to Chicago Police Department data.

“I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” the president said. “And if we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster.”

Pritzker said Trump would violate the U.S. Constitution if he sent the National Guard to Chicago over his objections.

“There is a law on the books, confirmed by the Constitution, called posse comitatus. And it means that the federal government does not have a right to send soldiers into American cities for the purpose of, well, for any purpose really, but specifically to fight crime,” Pritzker said at an unrelated news conference. “It’s not surprising to me that he suggests violating the law. He’s done it many times and been convicted of it 34 times. And so I would just say he has absolutely no right and no legal ability to send troops in to the city of Chicago, and so I reject that notion.”

After touting Chicago’s significant and sustained drop in crime, Johnson accused the president of “spreading misinformation.”

“If President Trump wants to help make Chicago safer, he can start by releasing the funds for anti-violence programs that have been critical to our work to drive down crime and violence,” Johnson said, adding that the president recently cut nationwide funding for those programs by another $158 million, on top of previous cuts of $800 million. “Sending in the national guard would only serve to destabilize our city and undermine our public safety efforts.”

Trump deployed the National Guard to Los Angeles over the objections of Mayor Karen Bass and California Gov. Gavin Newsom in early June after immigration raids triggered intense protests. A trial over the legality of that deployment began Monday.

The Trump administration has sought to yank billions of dollars in federal aid from all three cities, which have laws on the books that prevent local law enforcement agencies from helping federal agents deport undocumented immigrants.

That effort has been blocked by several federal judges, who have consistently ruled that effort violates the constitution.

Trump has falsely accused Johnson and Pritzker of protecting undocumented immigrants, who he routinely depicts as criminals, at the expense of other Americans.

There is no evidence undocumented immigrants are more likely to commit crimes than other groups.

Trump also insulted Pritzker and Johnson.

“We have a mayor there who’s totally incompetent,” Trump said, referring to Johnson. “He’s an incompetent man.”

Pritzker, who is running for a third term as Illinois governor and refused Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” to rule out a run for president in 2028, has opposed Trump at every opportunity and accused his fellow Democrats of not doing enough to block the presidents’ efforts.

“Pritzker’s an incompetent,” Trump said, falsely asserting that the governor, a billionaire and the heir to the Hyatt Hotel fortune, was fired by his relatives.

Pritzker left Pritzker Private Capital, the firm he co-founded with his brother, Anthony, when he became governor in 2019, as planned.

“And now I understand he wants to be president,” Trump continued. “But I noticed he lost a little weight, so maybe he has a chance, you know?”

In June 2020, Trump sent more than 100 federal agents to Chicago to crack down on surging crime in the wake of the police murder of George Floyd. Those agents had no noticeable impact on crime in Chicago, which continued to surge until 2022, when it began receding.

In 2017, Trump threated to “send in the Feds” unless Chicago officials “fix the horrible ‘carnage’ in the city.”

During his first term as president, Trump repeatedly disparaged Chicago and threatened to yank federal funds from the city.

Contact Heather Cherone: @HeatherCherone | (773) 569-1863 | [email protected]

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