WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump suggested he may not send National Guard troops into Chicago as he's repeatedly threatened, and for the first time introduced a potential new target for his next crime crackdown: New Orleans.
One day after he declared, "We're going in" about plans for Chicago, Trump on Sept. 3 said his administration still hadn't decided whether he would deploy troops to the nation's third-largest city. Trump instead pointed to New Orleans, a city in a Republican-led state, in contrast to Democratic-led Illinois.
"We're making a determination now," Trump said in the Oval Office to reporters. "Do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to straighten out a very nice section of this country that's become quite, you know, quite tough, quite bad"?
"So, we're going to be going to maybe Louisiana," Trump added.
Trump reiterated that he wants Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to request help from the Trump administration to combat Chicago's crime – something Pritzker has made clear he won't pursue.
