Consider This from NPR - Can Trump call the National Guard into Chicago too?

Episode Date: August 26, 2025

For over two weeks, members of the National Guard have been walking the streets of Washington, D.C. -- alongside federal law enforcement and local police.President Trump has said there is a “crime emergency” in the nation’s capital -- and has openly hinted at taking similar actions in other Democratic-led cities like Chicago, New York and Baltimore.But while the president has unique authorities over the District of Columbia, federalizing the National Guard in U.S. states will require a higher legal standard.Georgetown University law professor Steve Vladeck breaks it down. For sponsor-free episodes of Consider This, sign up for Consider This+ via Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org.Email us at [e-mail] episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Patrick Jarenwattananon. It features additional reporting by Frank Langfitt. Our executive producer is Sami Yenigun.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

For over two weeks, members of the National Guard have been walking the streets of Washington, D.C., alongside federal law enforcement and local police. And as of a few days ago, the more than 2,000 National Guard troops in D.C. were authorized to carry weapons. Breaking overnight, members of the National Guard now carrying weapons on patrol in Washington, D.C., the move marking a major escalation. It's all part of a federal crackdown on what President Trump calls the, quote, crime emergency. in the nation's capital. He's only escalated that rhetoric over the last two weeks. On Tuesday, he called for the death penalty for those who commit murder in Washington.

Many residents in D.C., where there hasn't been an execution in over half a century, aren't buying it. I think that he wants to destroy the Democratic Party. He knows that he can go into these cities that runs by a Democrat and control it and say, hey, we don't need Democrats. They are not doing an effective job. Justina Wilkins-Jordan lives in D.C.'s Dean Wood neighborhood, where she says she does hear of shootings, violent fights, and drug transactions, and she would like to see more law enforcement on the streets.

But she has not seen any federal officers in her neighborhood and doesn't trust the president's motives here. She spoke to NPR's Frank Langford. If President Trump were sitting in this chair right now, what would you tell him? I would say, President Trump, sit down and listen. It's not all about you and the Republicans. You can't control the world. I feel that right now, the reason why he's doing it, because he definitely want to be a dictator. Now, crime obviously does occur in Washington, D.C.,

but recent Justice Department statistics show that violent crime in the city hit a three-decade low in 2024. Ryan Wong, who lives in the city's U Street neighborhood, says this summer doesn't feel any more violent or more dangerous than any other summer. I think the idea that this is some, like, state of emergency that we're living in, it's not how I feel, and I don't think it's how the people that, like, we know here feel. Nearly eight in ten people in Washington opposed Trump's executive order to federalize law enforcement in the city, according to a recent poll by the Washington Post. And yet, President Trump has openly suggested that he will send the National Guard into other cities, citing high crime. You look at Chicago, how bad it is. is. You look at Los Angeles how bad it is. We have other cities that are very bad. New York has a problem. And then you have, of course, Baltimore and Oakland. On NPR's morning edition, Chicago

Mayor Brandon Johnson rejected Trump's threats to deploy the National Guard to his city. Community safety is my number one issue. The city of Chicago is not calling for American troops to occupy American cities. It's not democratic. It's unconstitutional. It's illegal and costly. Consider this. The Trump administration says it may deploy the National Guard to other cities beyond Washington, D.C. Can the president legally do that? From NPR, I'm Elsa Chang. It's consider this from NPR. One common question that keeps coming up as the National Guard patrols the nation's capital is how? On what legal basis can the Trump administration do this?

Well, Steve Lattuck, a Georgetown University law professor, answers that question for us. I mean, so there really are two different authorities he's relying upon with regard to the D.C. National Guard, so the folks who are here in D.C. all year, the president is always the commander-in-chief of the D.C. National Guard. can use them at any time. He doesn't need anyone's permission. But he's also relied upon out-of-state national guard troops that have been sent by a bunch of red state governors under a really obscure and not well-tested authority that was enacted by Congress in 2006. It's really that authority that's a much bigger deal if President Trump really does try to take the show on the road. And Trump has said that his decision to deploy any national guard troops is to fight crime, even though D.C. police data shows a double-digit drop in violent crime rights the last few years.

What is the National Guard allowed to do when it comes to local crime? This is where things get really, really sticky because of the uniqueness of D.C. In D.C., the National Guard has much broader power than it has almost anywhere else in the country because in D.C. It is always federal. It's always acting under the command of control of President Trump. Right. In other states, in California, in Illinois, in New York. York, the only way President Trump could directly command the National Guard would be to formally federalize it. And that depends upon President Trump finding various things to be true on the ground

that also don't appear to be true on the ground. And that would expose whatever he would try to, I think, a significant risk of litigation. Okay. What happens to the President's authority to federalize the National Guard in parts of the country outside of D.C. when there is local pushback. Like here in Los Angeles, where I am all the pushback from the mayor here and the governor did not stop Trump from federalizing the California National Guard and setting active duty Marines into L.A. earlier this year. And now Trump is saying more cities like Baltimore, like Chicago, are next. But mayors of both of those cities and the governors there are saying no. So what allows the president to disregard the wishes of those officials? Federal law since at least 1807 has allowed the president in some circumstances to send troops into states whether or not the governor consents. And, you know, we saw that put to good use a lot during the civil rights movement. For example, when President Eisenhower sent troops into Little Rock, Arkansas to, you know, de-segregate Central High School, the tricky part here is that what President Trump did earlier this year in California was based on his assertion that the federal forces were necessary. to defend federal property and federal personnel to wit ICE officers who are going on raids in

Los Angeles. He needs that kind of a target. He needs that kind of a sort of predicate or some broader argument that local civilian authorities have been unable to enforce the laws on the books before the law would allow him to federalize, say, the Illinois National Guard and send him into Chicago. What specific legal arguments could city and state, make to challenge the Trump administration in court? So, you know, again, I think there are two different authorities he could use and the arguments will depend upon which one it is. So if President Trump tries to federalize, let's say, again, the Illinois National Guard,

just as one example. One of the arguments will be that the factual predicates for federalization are not present, that, you know, he didn't have the authority because there was just no need for it. Another argument, and one we've seen in the California case already, is that even if President Trump has the authority to federalize the Illinois National Guard, he doesn't have the authority to send them into the streets to do ordinary law enforcement, that they can only do limited missions like protecting federal property or federal officers. If it's the other authority, if it is the, you know, weird 2006 statute that allows state governors to send their national

guards at their own volition into other states to support a, quote, federal mission, unquote, Then I think the arguments are going to be that you have to have the consent of the receiving state governor or else you have a massive violation of the equality of state's rights under the Constitution. Well, just historically speaking for context here, explain why the U.S. has always tried to draw some clear lines between the military and domestic law enforcement. Yeah, I mean, if we go all the way back to the founding of this country, you know, one of the charges against King George III that was leveled in the Declaration of Independence. was that he was using, you know, the military to effectively supplant civilian rule in the colonies. This is why, for example, the Constitution prohibits the quartering of troops in our homes in the Third Amendment. Congress really since 1792 has said we recognize there are going to be some circumstances, some emergencies in which the president's really going to need to be able to

use troops on the home front, maybe to repel invaders or to suppress an insurrection. But, you know, those authorities have historically been used sparingly. We haven't even seen those authorities used since 1992 when President Bush, you know, used the statute called the Insurrection Act to send troops into Los Angeles during the Rodney King riots. For President Trump to cross that line in a context in which there is such significant contestation of the factual basis and in which it really does seem to be about partisan politics and not public safety, you know, is not. not just challenging those legal precedents. It really is challenging the very, very strong norm we have in this country that we don't have the military doing law enforcement. Well, short of the courts, is there anything stopping the president of the United States from declaring an ongoing emergency and leaving troops on the streets of D.C. indefinitely.

So not on the statutes as they are currently written. Now, you know, someone has to pay for all of this. So presumably there is going to be a budget. constraint at some point along the way. But, you know, for better or for worse, and I would argue for worse, Congress has given the president an awful lot of power over the District of Columbia, you know, reflecting a series of historical and structural quirks about the nation's capital. I think the most important point for folks to take away from that is that doesn't mean that the same things will be legal if and when President Trump tries them in other cities, you know, just because we're getting conditioned to and desensitized to visuals of

National Guard troops in Union Station and on the National Mall, doesn't mean we should feel the same if you see that in, you know, Times Square or Grant Park. Steve Vladick of Georgetown University Law Center. Thank you very much. Thank you. This episode was produced by Brianna Scott. It was edited by Patrick Jaron Watananan. Our executive producer is Sammy Yenigan. It's Consider This from NPR.

I'm Elsie Chang. Thank you.