New Orleans might be the next city to have a National Guard deployment to thwart crime after President Donald Trump on Wednesday said its Republican governor would welcome the help in the Crescent City. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo
U.S. President Donald Trump suggested he could send federal troops to New Orleans to thwart violent crime in the Crescent City, the president said on Wednesday.
The potential deployment could mirror what the president has done in Washington and said he will do soon in Chicago.
“We are making the determination now: Do we go to Chicago? Or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor … who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that’s become quite, quite tough [and] quite bad?” Trump told media on Wednesday.
The president said New Orleans “has a crime problem” and a troop deployment could “straighten that out in two weeks.”
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry is a Republican and affirmed his support for federal intervention in New Orleans and elsewhere.
“We will take President [Donald Trump’s] help from New Orleans to Shreveport,” Landry said Wednesday morning in a post on X.
Trump on Tuesday told media he will send the National Guard to Chicago, but Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, opposes such a deployment.
“I want to go into Chicago, and I have this embarrassing governor who doesn’t want us,” Trump said.
Instead, the president is awaiting requests from respective state governors before deploying National Guard or federal troops to their states.
New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell and officials at the New Orleans Police Department issued a joint statement affirming their efforts to work with the federal government.
“We have consistently worked with our federal partners, including collaboration with the Louisiana State Police,” the joint statement says, as reported by NBC News.
“This collaborative approach has been instrumental in our ongoing success in reducing crime.”
New Orleans City Council Vice President Helena Moreno called the proposed deployment a politicized “attack” on the city.
“We have had unprecedented reduction in crime and violence in New Orleans,” Moreno said in a prepared statement, as reported by WWL-TV.
“There are many cities with mayors aligned with this president, whose crime issues are severe, but they’re not targeted,” Moreno said.
“That clearly shows that this is about scare tactics and politicizing public safety,” she continued, “ultimately leading to the misuse of public funds and resources to attempt to score political points.”
She said New Orleans “cannot allow this” and vowed to “fight to prevent any federal takeover of New Orleans.”
New Orleans officials have reported a 21.5% decline in crime over the past year.
