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We're going to save all of our cities, and we're going to make them essentially crime-free.

Since June of 2025, thousands of National Guard troops have been deployed to four U.S.

cities, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Chicago, and Memphis.

And if President Donald Trump has his way, Portland, Oregon will be fifth on the list.

Hello, and welcome to a special episode of USA Today's The Exert.

I'm Dana Taylor.

Trump says the deployments are a push to crack down on crime and to support his widespread deportation efforts. But when a president deploys the National Guard over the objections of

governors and local mayors is the decision about keeping the peace or testing the limits of executive power.

Here to help me unpack the issues surrounding this unprecedented deployment of U.S. troops

on American soil is USA Today breaking news reporter Michael Loria.

Michael, it's really good to have you on.

Thanks so much for having me on.

Are legal boundaries being tested here with

the deployment of the National Guard for domestic operations such as those protecting ICE agents?

How's the Trump administration responded to the accusations of federal overreach?

As we're seeing from the pushback from attorney generals in democratically led states, these

lawyers are saying that Trump is crossing a lot of lines, you know, from lawyers in D.C. saying

that they're violating the district's right to govern itself to attorneys in Illinois, basically

questioning whether the justifications that the Trump administration is making

around deploying the troops are tethered to reality.

...