President Donald Trump said Friday that he plans to send the National Guard to Memphis as part of a broader federal effort to “fix” crime in major U.S. cities, telling Fox News’ Fox & Friends that the administration would also deploy "anybody else we need" and could bring in the military if necessary.
Trump described Memphis as "deeply troubled" and said both the city’s Democratic mayor and Tennessee’s Republican governor were "happy" with the decision. He repeated an earlier comment that he would have “preferred going to Chicago,” and said the administration was prepared to act even if local officials resisted.
The announcement follows a series of federal interventions the president has directed in recent months. In August, the administration took control of the Washington, D.C., police department and deployed National Guard troops to the capital; that 30-day takeover expired Wednesday night, though National Guard forces are expected to remain in the city at least through the end of November. Earlier in the summer, the administration deployed Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests after immigration enforcement actions there.
Memphis officials and local law enforcement present a different picture of crime trends. A USA TODAY analysis found that in 2024 Memphis had the highest rates of murder and violent crime among major U.S. cities. The Memphis Police Department, however, said this week that overall crime is at a historic 25-year low so far this year, with robbery, burglary and larceny down to 25-year lows and murder at a six-year low.
Trump did not specify what federal authority he would invoke to effect the deployment to Memphis. Legal experts and local officials have previously questioned the administration’s legal basis for using federal troops and Guard units in domestic law enforcement roles. In September, a federal judge ruled that the National Guard deployment in Los Angeles this summer violated federal law because the troops had been used in civil law enforcement functions.
The president has repeatedly named other cities he says could face federal operations, including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Baltimore, Oakland and New Orleans. Most of those cities are in states with Democratic governors; New Orleans and Memphis are in states led by Republican governors and have GOP-controlled legislatures, though the cities themselves have Democratic mayors.
Governors have responded inconsistently to the administration’s deployments. After the D.C. operation began, Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee — both Republicans — sent National Guard troops to the capital to assist. In contrast, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, rejected the idea of federal troop deployments in Chicago; Johnson ordered city departments not to cooperate if troops were sent.
Trump’s remarks on Friday reiterated the administration’s criminal-justice messaging ahead of the 2024 election cycle, and revived questions about federal-state coordination and the legal limits on using military and Guard forces in U.S. cities. Local law enforcement agencies and city officials are likely to press for clarity on the chain of command and the legal authorities the administration plans to rely upon if federal forces are deployed to Memphis.
A timeline of recent moves by the administration shows an escalation of federal involvement in city policing since the summer. The deployments and takeover in Washington, the Los Angeles Guard mission and the public threats against other cities have drawn legal challenges and political pushback from municipal leaders, and the September federal court ruling against the Los Angeles operation adds a legal obstacle to similar actions elsewhere.
As of Friday, the White House had not released an operational plan, a legal memo or a timeline for the proposed deployment to Memphis. City officials in Memphis did not immediately release a detailed response to the announcement, and federal and state officials gave no public accounting of the legal authority that would govern any upcoming operation there.