President Donald Trump threatened to send “more than the National Guard” to "troubled" U.S. cities, a potential escalation from deploying troops where mayors and governors have opposed them in disputes that have reached the Supreme Court.
“We’re sending in our National Guard and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard because we’re going to have safe cities,” Trump said Oct. 27 at a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, during his weeklong Asia trip. “We’re not going to have people killed in our cities. Whether people like that or not, that’s what we’re doing."
Trump didn’t specify what the escalation would mean and which cities he is targeting.
Trump has deployed the national guard to cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Memphis to quell protests against stricter immigration enforcement. But mayors and governors from all but Memphis have opposed the deployments and challenged them in federal courts with mixed results.
If courts block the National Guard deployments, Trump has threatened repeatedly to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy active-duty troops to fight crime and battle protesters.
