(AFP) – US President Donald Trump’s ultimate aim in sending troops to American cities is to seize control of elections in 2026, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said Sunday, calling such deployments “an invasion.”
Trump — who has unleashed unprecedented military patrols in Los Angeles to curb protests against his immigrant deportation drive and to Washington to combat what he deems out-of-control crime — has said he’s also considering sending troops to Baltimore, Chicago, and other cities. Democrat Pritzker said there had been no effort by the Trump administration to coordinate such plans with officials in Illinois, a Democratic stronghold. The other cities Republican Trump has threatened to send troops to are also controlled by his political rivals.
“He’d like to stop the elections in 2026 or, frankly, take control of those elections. He’ll just claim that there’s some problem with an election, and then he’s got troops on the ground that can take control,” Pritzker told CBS Sunday show “Face the Nation.” The governor said any deployment of troops against his state government’s wishes would be “an invasion with US troops, if they in fact do that.” Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem earlier told the network she would be adding resources to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) operations in Illinois, but that any decision to send National Guard reservists or other troops was up to Trump. If troops are sent along with ICE, “they’ll be in court pretty quickly, because that is illegal,” Pritzker said.
– ‘Scaring people’ –
Trump has been typically scathing in his dismissal of Pritzker’s previous criticism. “Six people were killed, and 24 people were shot, in Chicago last weekend, and JB Pritzker, the weak and pathetic Governor of Illinois, just said that he doesn’t need help in preventing CRIME,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform on Saturday. “He is CRAZY!!! He better straighten it out, FAST, or we’re coming!”
CBS cited a sharp drop in crime during the ongoing troop deployment in Washington, which is in its third week. Homicides are down 41 percent, robberies 69 percent, and carjacking 83 percent, the network said. CJ Jackson, a 35-year-old Chicago resident who works in a smoke shop, said a National Guard deployment in the Windy City would be “a great idea.” “We got some teenagers out of control here,” he said. “They shoot kids every day.”
But 24-year-old Greta, a shop worker who did not want to give her last name, said she was “a little bit nervous” about the potential for military troops on the street. “There’s bad parts of every city… I think it’s scaring people more than it’s making people feel safe.”
Trump has mentioned only Democratic-run cities in discussing potential troop deployments, despite high violent crime levels being spread across a number of cities, including in Republican-controlled Missouri, Texas, and Tennessee. Asked if the president would consider sending troops to Republican-controlled cities and states, Noem said: “Absolutely. Every single city is evaluated for what we need to do there to make it safer.”
– Emma Lacoste, with Kate Beddall in Washington
© 2024 AFP
