US President Donald Trump said Friday that Memphis will be the next city to receive a federal policing surge, expanding his law-and-order agenda after recent deployments in Washington, DC.
“We’re going to Memphis. [It is] deeply troubled and the mayor is happy. The Democrat mayor [Paul Young], the mayor is happy. And the [Republican] Governor [Bill Lee] is happy,” Trump said on Fox & Friends.
Deeply troubled — we’re going to fix that, just like we did Washington. I would have preferred going to Chicago.”
Trump said the idea came from a friend who is a railroad executive and sits on the board of Memphis-based FedEx. “He said, ‘When I walk one block to my hotel, they won’t allow me to do it. They put me in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass to take me one block.’ He said, ‘It’s so terrible.’”
“So we’re going to Memphis. I’m just announcing that now, and we’ll straighten that out,” Trump said. “We’ll bring in the military, too, if we need it. But National Guard. Memphis is, look, it’s a great music city, it’s, you know, home of Elvis and everything else.”
Trump noted that Memphis will be the second city to receive such a federal surge, following Washington, where last month he deployed federal law enforcement and National Guard troops after a rise in violent crime.
Crime strategy beyond Memphis
The president has threatened a similar federal operation in Chicago, but Illinois governer JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats, have pushed back.
Earlier this week, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched “Operation Midway Blitz” in Chicago, targeting illegal immigrants with criminal records, though so far federal involvement there remains limited to border enforcement.
Trump previously sent federal officers into major cities in 2020 under Operation Legend. His new comments on Memphis signal a broader expansion of federal involvement in urban crime control.
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