Mere hours after a federal judge ruled that his use of U.S. troops in police actions in Los Angeles was illegal, President Donald Trump threatened to carry out a similar operation in Chicago.
Speaking to reporters from the Oval Office on Tuesday, Trump said that he still plans to deploy troops in the nation’s third-largest city over the objections of local and state leaders.
“We’re going in,” Trump said. “This isn’t a political thing. I have an obligation.”
Echoing law and order rhetoric he used to defend similar actions in D.C., the president cited a spate of shootings in Chicago over Labor Day weekend as justification for a troop surge in the Windy City.
“When I watch television last night, and I’m watching the news and I see that nine people were killed in Chicago and 54 were badly wounded with bullets, I say, ‘That’s not our country. We have to do something,” he said.
Trump on sending troops to Chicago: “We’re going in. I didn’t say when we’re going in.” pic.twitter.com/OnHMELhxUN
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 2, 2025
Trump’s comments come on the same day that U.S. District Court Judge Charles Breyer ruled Trump had violated the Posse Comitatus Act by deploying the military on the streets of Los Angeles in June. Breyer accused the president of trying to create a “national police force with the president as its chief.”
“Congress spoke clearly in 1878,” Breyer wrote. “There was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law. In short, defendants violated the Posse Comitatus Act.”
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Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was equally averse to Trump’s recent stateside deployments. In a press conference shortly after Trump declared his intention to send troops to Chicago, Pritzker wondered if the country had “lost all sense of sanity.”
“There is no emergency that warrants deployment of troops. He is insulting the people of Chicago by calling our home a hellhole, and anyone who takes his word at face value is insulting Chicagoans, too,” he said.
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