Senate Republicans are aligning with President Donald Trump’s push to deploy the National Guard to Democrat-led cities and states experiencing high crime rates. Some GOP senators are even open to sending troops to blue cities within their own states to help curb violence.
“Blue cities like Memphis need all the help they can get to combat violent crime,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., told Fox News Digital.
Trump’s plan follows his earlier crime-fighting measures in Washington, D.C., where he federalized local police and deployed the National Guard to patrol streets and Metro stations. Now, he has signaled intentions to send troops to Chicago and Baltimore, two blue cities in states with some of the highest crime rates.
The potential move has drawn sharp criticism from Democratic senators in Illinois and Maryland. They accuse the president of staging “political theater” in D.C. and attempting to “play dictator” with the military.
Senate Minority Whip Dick Durbin, D-Ill., called Trump’s National Guard threat “nothing more than a power grab to distract from his disastrous policies.” Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., told Fox News Digital, “Trump’s threats to invade our cities are not the answer – and are sad attempts to distract from his failures to actually put forward solutions to these and other issues facing our communities, like the rising cost of living.”
“Instead of politicizing our great City of Baltimore, which Trump knows nothing about, he should just button it up while federal, state, and local law enforcement do their important work,” Van Hollen added.
Republicans, in contrast, have largely supported Trump’s decision to bring the National Guard into the district and have discussed extending his federalization of the Metropolitan Police Department — or allowing him to bypass Congress entirely — once the 30-day window ends.
Some GOP leaders have welcomed the idea of deploying troops to fight crime in their own cities.
Memphis, Tennessee’s largest city and a Democratic stronghold, has one of the highest violent crime rates in the country. Blackburn told Fox News Digital she would support sending federal troops there.
“I support the Trump administration’s efforts to restore law and order in lawless cities across America, and I’ll continue to work with the president, Attorney General [Pam] Bondi, and FBI Director [Kash] Patel to do whatever it takes to make cities like Memphis safe again,” she said.
In St. Louis, another major city that frequently ranks among the nation’s highest in violent and overall crime, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., has collaborated with Patel to secure funding for a surge of FBI agents, described as “one of the largest per capita infusions of full-time agents and intel personnel in the nation.”
Schmitt expressed openness to sending troops to St. Louis and criticized local leaders in blue cities for being “more focused on the rights of criminals than victims, and it’s allowed crime to run rampant.”
“American families want and deserve to feel safe in their communities, and I’m glad to see President Trump doing what it takes to enforce the rule of law and increase public safety,” Schmitt said in a statement to Fox News Digital. “His efforts in D.C. have been hugely successful, and I have no doubt other cities could benefit from increased law enforcement presence.”
