Trump revealed the next city on the list for his administration’s crackdown on crime during a television appearance on Friday morning.
“Maybe I’ll be the first to say it right now again. We’re going to Memphis,” he said during an appearance on Fox & Friends on September 12, describing the Tennessee city as “deeply troubled.”
“We’re going to Memphis, I’m just announcing that now, and we’ll straighten that out,” he said during the interview.
“We’re bringing the military too if we need it.”
According to Trump, both the governor of Tennessee, Bill Lee, and the mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, a Democrat, are “happy” with this development.
“The mayor is happy, he’s a Democrat mayor. The mayor is happy, and the governor of Tennessee. The governor’s happy,” Trump said.
“We’re gonna fix that just like we did Washington.”
He said, “Memphis is a great music city, home of Elvis and everything.”
According to Trump, he spoke with the head of Union Pacific, who is also on the board of FedEx, about which US cities he would like to see the National Guard deployed in next.
“He said, ‘Sir, Memphis would be good,'” Trump said.
“He’s on the board of FedEx. He said, ‘When I walk 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.”
Memphis, Tennessee was listed on the FBI Crime Data Explorer as one of the highest nationally for its homicide rates in the year 2024.
It also ranks the highest for violent crime rates, sitting at 9,400.3 out of 100,000 residents.
But Memphis is not the only southern city that was suggested to Trump as his next target.
“I said to him, ‘Where else should we go?’ He said, ‘Sir, please, do me a favor. St. Louis has been so badly hit, it’s been hard. Very, very hard,'” Trump said of the Union Pacific boss, suggesting the city had been hit badly by crime and was ripe for similar intervention.
He claimed that corporate leaders flagged St. Louis as a growing problem, foreshadowing that it could be next in line for the National Guard sweep.
Trump also dropped a nod to Chicago, Illinois, telling Fox & Friends hosts he “would have preferred going to Chicago” instead of Memphis.
The president has previously said Chicago is one of the nation’s most violent cities and has pleaded for federal intervention.
But local politicians blocked him from taking action.
Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order on August 30, 2025, blocking city police from working with National Guard troops or federal agents.
“Let’s not lie to the public, you and I both know you have no authority to take over Chicago,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said to Trump on X last month.
TRUMP’S WAR ON CRIME
On August 11, 2025, Trump announced a crackdown and deployed troops in Washington, DC.
This crackdown on the first day alone made a total of 23 arrests, consisting of homicide, firearms, and drug possession with intent to distribute.
His crackdown in DC led to over 2300 arrests as reported by Fox News.
Source : https://www.the-sun.com/news/15176096/trump-memphis-st-louis-crime-crackdown-national-guard-troops/