On September 4, 2025, President Trump announced on Wednesday that the city of New Orleans may be the next location where he deploys the National Guard to combat crime, rather than Chicago. He is waiting for the request for assistance from the Governor of Illinois.
Since federal forces were deployed to Washington D.C. in August, President Trump stated a decrease in crime rates in the capital. Louisiana’s Republican Governor Jeff Landry has reached out to him for support. Trump expects that the security issues in New Orleans can be resolved within two weeks.
“We are currently making a decision. Whether we go to Chicago or to a place like New Orleans, where there is a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to intervene in cleaning up this area that was once nice but has now become quite difficult and bad,” Trump said.
“So we might go to Louisiana, look at New Orleans, there are security problems there. We can clean it up in about two weeks, easier than handling Washington D.C.,” he added.
Trump mentioned that Washington D.C. has become a “crime-free zone” and praised Democratic Mayor Muriel Bowser for her cooperation in combating crime. He urged other major cities, especially Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, and Baltimore, to follow suit.
According to a White House report, since President Trump announced the mobilization of federal forces on August 7th, over 1,760 arrests have been made in Washington D.C.
Trump emphasized that if certain governors do not wish for the National Guard to patrol under federal mobilization, he will not send them proactively. Regarding cities like Baltimore and Chicago, led by Democrats and facing poor security conditions, he stated that he is “basically waiting for them to request it.” Trump admitted, “I want to go into Chicago, but there is an embarrassing governor who does not want us to do so.”
It remains to be seen whether Trump will implement a similar federal law enforcement deployment in New Orleans as in Washington D.C.
Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker strongly oppose federal intervention and have warned that military intervention without local consent could incite community panic.
(*This article references reports from the Associated Press and “Politico” media.)