Trump says he is considering sending troops to New Orleans

WASHINGTON

US President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he is considering potential deployment of the National Guard to New Orleans, suggesting the governor of Louisiana has welcomed the idea.

"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 told reporters in the Oval Office.

"We're going to be going to maybe Louisiana, and you have New Orleans, which has a crime problem. We'll straighten that out in about two weeks. It'll take us two weeks, easier than DC," he said, referring to his federal takeover of the capital's police force and deployment of the military.

The action followed Trump's deployment of thousands of National Guard troops and Marines to Los Angeles in June as he sought to quell protesters incensed by his immigration crackdown on America's second-largest city.

Landry, for his part, welcomed Trump's comments, and suggested he would be appreciative if the president deployed troops to cities beyond New Orleans.

"We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport!" he said on American social media platform X.

As he opened the door to replicating the effort in New Orleans, Trump maintained that he still wants to send troops to Chicago, despite heavy pushback from Mayor Brandon Johnson and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.

"They are fighting us. I want to go into Chicago and have this incompetent governor that doesn't want us," he said, claiming 72 people were shot in Chicago over the Labor Day weekend. "We could straighten out Chicago. All they have to do is ask us to go into Chicago."