Trump lost the battle. Will he win the "war?"

It's Been a Minute

NPR

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🗓️ 19 September 2025

⏱️ 20 minutes

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Summary

Why is Trump sending the National Guard to cities when crime is already falling?

Earlier this month, President Trump posted this: “I love the smell of deportations in the morning. Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR.” He seemed poised to send the National Guard to the city in an attempt to curb crime, after having deployed them in D.C. But this week, he turned his attention to Memphis, signing an order for deployment there and vowing to circle back to Chicago later. And these three cities aren’t the only ones on his radar: Baltimore, Portland, New Orleans, and St. Louis are also bracing for possible deployments. But why send the National Guard – a temporary military force – to these cities when crime has already fallen this year in every single city he’s mentioned? Brittany gets into it with Abdallah Fayyad, policy correspondent at Vox, and Alex V. Hernandez, neighborhood reporter for Block Club Chicago.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, hello.
0:03.9	I'm Brittany Luce and you're listening to It's Been a Minute from NPR, a show about what's going on in culture and why it doesn't happen by accident.
0:19.3	Alex, you live in Chicago.
0:20.9	Do you care to make a case for why it's the best city in America?
0:24.2	Yeah, it was born here.
0:25.2	It's great.
0:26.4	That's a solid reason, actually, very solid.
0:29.0	Yeah, no, exactly.
0:30.3	It's kind of bizarre, too, because the longer you're in Chicago,
0:33.6	the more you basically realize you know someone in Chicago by like a degree of three people
0:38.0	removed or four people removed. That's actually very beautiful. That's very beautiful. I will say, Chicago puts up a good fight, but I mean, you're wrong. I think New York is the greatest city in America. I'm not even from there, but I live here, but they're 13 years. And hopefully, by the grace of God, I will be a lifer.
0:58.4	But according to Donald Trump, both of our cities, Abdullah, you live in New York too.
1:06.5	So yes, literally, all of our cities are, to quote Trump, rotting cesspools of blood.
1:14.8	Last month, Trump decided to send National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., which he said was a response to crime and homelessness.
1:19.3	Federal officers also arrested over 2,000 people.
1:23.2	And as of August, 80% of those arrests were for misdemeanors.
1:26.0	Then it looked like it could be Chicago's turn.
1:29.0	Earlier this month, Trump posted this quote.
1:32.6	I love the smell of deportations in the morning.
1:37.4	Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of War,
1:43.3	along with the picture of him in a Robert Duval hat in front of explosions and helicopters in the phrase,
1:44.7	Shypocalypse Now.
	...

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