President Donald Trump said he is looking to crack down on crime in other cities in the country and is eyeing Chicago, a Democrat-led city that he has long been a target of the president’s criticism.
He has said that Washington, D.C., would be a model, a city where he deployed the National Guard, surged federal law enforcement and took control of the local police force.
Trump made several off-the-cuff comments about the National Guard’s deployment in the nation’s capital, now in its eighth day, during a news conference in the Oval Office on Friday about World Cup plans.
“The National Guard has done such an incredible job working with the police,” he said. “And after we do this, we’ll go to another location, and we’ll make it safe also. We’re gonna make our country very safe. We’re going to make our cities very, very safe.”
Skyline of Chicago.
Iuliia Sokolovska/Adobe Stock
Trump singled out Chicago as the next city he would “make safe,” repeating his claims, without providing evidence, that crime there is out of control and the current Democratic leadership wasn’t doing enough to address the problem. The president and Vice President JD Vance claimed that people in Chicago were “screaming” for help.
“African American ladies, beautiful ladies are saying, please, President Trump, come to Chicago, please,” Trump claimed, adding that he “did great with the Black vote.”
Crime statistics from Chicago’s Police Department show that overall crime in the city is down 13% year to date compared to the same period in 2024, with 59,206 reported crime instances compared to 68,165 the year before. Murders year to date and robberies are down 31% and 33% respectively compared to the same period in 2024, according to the police.
Crime is up 40% since 2021, when there were 42,250 reported incidents year-to-date, but murders and robberies saw a drop of 50% and 11%, respectively, in those four years, according to the Chicago PD data.
Trump said the administration hasn’t taken any concrete steps to increase police presence in Chicago, but warned “when we’re ready, we’ll go ahead,” referring to Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson as “grossly incompetent.”
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office, August 22, 2025 in Washington.
Jonathan Ernst/Reuters
“We’ll go ahead and we’ll straighten out Chicago, just like we did D.C. Chicago’s very dangerous. Great place. I built great stuff there. I have the most beautiful building in Chicago, I think, but I hate to see what’s happened to Chicago. Chicago is our greatest city, actually,” he said.
Johnson released a statement Friday responding to Trump’s claims that he was looking to take federal action to curb the city’s crime and said that he received no formal communication from the administration.
“Certainly, we have grave concerns about the impact of any unlawful deployment of National Guard troops to the City of Chicago. The problem with the President’s approach is that it is uncoordinated, uncalled for, and unsound,” he said.
The mayor said deploying the National Guard could “inflame tensions between residents and law enforcement,” and “would threaten to undermine the historic progress we have.”
“The National Guard is no substitute for dedicated local law enforcement and community violence interrupters who know and serve our communities every day. There are many things the federal government could do to help us reduce crime and violence in Chicago, but sending in the military is not one of them,” Johnson said.
“So, I think Chicago will be our next [city], And then we’ll help with New York,” Trump added but didn’t offer any specific details or explanation as to why New York needed assistance with crime.
Trump also said he would “help” New York City when it came to crime, but didn’t offer any details or explanation as to why the city needed assistance with crime.
The New York Police Department’s crime data found that overall crime is down 4.74% this year compared to last year, with 74,764 reported incidents year to date in 2025 versus 78,488 reported incidents during the same period in 2024.
Crime has dropped 76.5% since 1990, when there were 527,257 reported incidents, according to the NYPD.
Trump did not give any timetable as to when he would end the deployment of the National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. The president continued to berate D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser and her handling of public safety, claiming she hasn’t taken her responsibilities seriously.
“Mayor Bowser better get her act straight or she won’t be mayor very long, because we’ll take it over with the federal government, run it like it’s supposed to be run,” Trump said.
Violent crime levels in Washington, D.C., have decreased compared to years prior, down 26% since 2024, a 30-year low, according to crime stats released by the D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department.
South Carolina National Guardsmen patrol at the base of the Washington Monument, Aug. 20, 2025, in Washington.
Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP
Bowser criticized Trump’s use of the Guard as an “armed militia in the Nation’s Capital.”
“Crime has gone down in our city and it has gone down precipitously over the last two years because of a lot of hard work, changes to our public safety ecosystem, including changes to the law,” Bowser said.
Earlier in the day, the president announced that he was looking beyond military options to improve the city.
Trump said that he would be requesting $2 billion from Congress for D.C. to be “beautified.”
Members of the National Guard walk at the National Mall in Washington, D.C., August 21, 2025.
Jose Luis Gonzalez/Reuters
“It hasn’t been clean. Now it’s going to be clean,” he said earlier in the day.
The president, who claimed he talked to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, said the effort would focus on a 3-mile radius of the White House and Capitol.
“I think it’s going to be very easy to get,” he said. “I wouldn’t even know where to spend the number that you mentioned, but it’s going to be money to beautify the city.”
Representatives for Johnson and Thune did not immediately return requests for comment to ABC News.
