Trump Abandons National Guard Push in Chicago, LA, Portland

President Donald Trump said he is “removing” National Guard troops from Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, after a number of legal setbacks, claiming that his deployments had helped reduce crime in the nation’s cities.

The cities Trump cited, however, had seen his efforts to deploy troops blocked by federal judges — and the president made no indication that he is withdrawing troops from cities where soldiers he sent are actually patrolling, such as Washington, DC.

“We are removing the National Guard from Chicago, Los Angeles, and Portland, despite the fact that CRIME has been greatly reduced by having these great Patriots in those cities, and ONLY by that fact,” Trump wrote on social media Wednesday, adding that he would revisit his decision if crime rose in those jurisdictions.

“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again - Only a question of time!,” he added.

Trump’s move comes a week after the US Supreme Court refused to let him send Guard troops to Chicago, a major setback in the president’s push to use the military in Democratically controlled cities to address what he and his supporters say is rampant crime and protests over his ramped up deportations of undocumented migrants.

Earlier: Supreme Court Rejects Trump Use of National Guard in Chicago

Trump had sought to send hundreds of troops to Chicago, the nation’s third-largest city, to aid immigration enforcement there. The 6-3 Supreme Court decision let a lower ruling blocking that deployment stand.

That case was one of several challenging Trump’s planned deployments. The administration was appealing a judge’s order that blocked Trump from deploying the National Guard in Portland, Oregon, a city he has claimed without evidence is “burning to the ground.” A different judge has ruled that he can’t deploy the National Guard in Memphis.

A federal judge in Washington, DC, has ruled that Trump’s deployment of troops there was probably unlawful, though an appeals court earlier this month said that they can remain there for now.

Trump had send troops to the Los Angeles-area earlier this year but that deployment was also blocked by a federal judge who said the president should relinquish control of the soldiers to California Governor Gavin Newsom, a Democrat. The US Department of Justice, however, in a filing this week appeared to stand down from challenging the judge’s decision.

Earlier: National Guard Troops in LA to Return to Newsom’s Control

Trump in his second term has sought to expand his authority over Democratic-run cities and states, including by withholding funds from those that have bucked his policy agenda, and through his threatened troop deployments.

Critics have cast the deployments as a power grab, arguing for example that in Washington crime was down from highs after the Covid-19 pandemic and that troops were not patrolling areas most ridden by violence and disorder.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Josh Wingrove in Washington at jwingrove4@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story:
Justin Sink at jsink1@bloomberg.net

Laura Davison, Meghashyam Mali

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