By Jarrett Renshaw and Andy Sullivan
NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Friday that he would send National Guard troops to Memphis, Tennessee, to combat crime, following his administration's unprecedented police takeover in Washington, D.C. last month.
Trump has sought to make crime a central issue even as violent crime rates have fallen in many cities. His crackdown on Democratic-led municipalities has spurred protests, including a demonstration by several thousand people in Washington last weekend.
"We're going to Memphis. Memphis is deeply troubled," Trump said in an interview with the Fox News "Fox and Friends" program at a studio in New York. "We're going to fix that, just like we did Washington."
Trump said Memphis' mayor, a Democrat, was "happy" with the move.
The office of Memphis Mayor Paul Young did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Memphis, a city of 611,000 people along the Mississippi River, has one of the highest violent crime rates in the United States, according to FBI statistics. Some 24% of residents live in poverty, more than double the national average, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
The U.S. Justice Department sent federal agents to help fight violent crime in the city in 2020, during Trump's first term in office.
Trump said he might also send federal personnel to New Orleans - like Memphis, a Democratic-leaning city in a Republican-controlled state. He has threatened to deploy National Guard troops to Chicago, but so far has not done so.
It was unclear under what authorities Trump would send National Guard troops and what timeline he was looking at.
A federal law called the Posse Comitatus Act generally restricts the use of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes.
There are exceptions to the Act, and the law often does not apply to actions by National Guard troops under the command of a state's governor. Trump could also take the far-reaching step of invoking the Insurrection Act.
Governors often deploy the National Guard in their states to respond to natural disasters like hurricanes. Minnesota deployed its National Guard in 2020 to help restore order in the wake of protests after the murder of George Floyd by police.
Trump argues that crime is blighting American cities like Washington, and in recent weeks placed the U.S. capital city's police department under direct federal control and sent federal law enforcement personnel to patrol the city's streets.
Justice Department data showed violent crime in 2024 hit a 30-year low in Washington.
(Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw and Andy Sullivan. Additional reporting by Idrees Ali; Writing by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Rami Ayyub, Joe Bavier and David Gregorio)
