President Donald Trump said he will deploy troops to New Orleans, the first such deployment to a Red state.
After his deployment of the National Guard led to a significant decrease in the crime rate, the president feels emboldened to recreate his strategy in other cities around the country. While he has floated Chicago and New York City as his next top targets, both in heavily Blue states, he’s now expanding his plan to Blue cities in solidly Red states.
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Speaking at a renovated Rose Garden on Friday night, Trump began by deriding the crime situation in Chicago.
“But these are high-crime areas. As high as there is in the world, you can go to Afghanistan, you can go to places that you think of are unsafe. You’re safer there than you are in Chicago at night. But we’re going to make Chicago like this,” Trump said.
“We’re going to come into New Orleans, and we’re going to make that place so safe. It’s got a little problem right now. A couple of headaches like murders, a lot of little murders going on, and we’re not going to stand for it. And we’re going to come in, we’re going to clean it up. You’re going to be safe within two weeks. That’s going to be the safest place. Just like this is the safest place,” he added, referring to Washington, D.C.
“And then we’ll be going elsewhere throughout the country. We’re going to bring crime down. We can’t have cities that are unsafe,” Trump continued.
Trump had floated the possibility of a deployment to New Orleans on Wednesday, saying he was invited by Gov. Jeff Landry (R-LA).
DC NATIONAL GUARD TROOP DEPLOYMENT EXTENDED THROUGH DECEMBER
“We’re making a determination now, 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 come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite tough, quite bad,” he said on Wednesday.
Trump’s liberal use of the National Guard in his second term has won him laudits from Republicans for his bold approach and heavy criticism from Democrats who view it as an overstep of power.