USA Military deployment like in war? Trump provokes Chicago
US President Donald Trump has antagonized the mayor and the governor of the surrounding state of Illinois with an allusion to a possible military deployment in Chicago.
07.09.2025, 01:13
SDA
He distributed a graphic created with artificial intelligence that shows the skyline of the Democratic-ruled city of millions and is reminiscent of the war film "Apocalypse Now" in its design and choice of words. It reads: Chicago was about to find out why the US Department of Defense was renamed the Department of War.
Trump's martial post on the Truth Social platform was accompanied by the words "I love the smell of deportations in the morning" - an allusion to the well-known movie quote "I love the smell of napalm in the morning." As is so often the case with Trump, it initially remained unclear whether the content of the graphic was really a serious threat or more of a PR stunt.
The president had previously announced that he would take massive action against allegedly rampant crime in Chicago. In the capital Washington, which he described as a "rat hole", he had activated the National Guard weeks ago on the same grounds and placed the local police under federal control. Trump did not say what exactly he plans to do in Chicago, how far these plans have progressed, whether he intends to mobilize the National Guard again or when such a deployment might begin.
Governor calls Trump "wannabe dictator"
Politicians in Illinois took Trump's allusion seriously. Illinois' Democratic Governor JB Pritzker wrote on X: "The President of the United States is threatening to declare war on an American city.This is not a joke. This is not normal." And further: "Donald Trump is not a strong man, he's scared. Illinois will not be intimidated by a would-be dictator."
Mayor: Must protect ourselves from authoritarianism
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, also a Democrat, called the Republican's threats unworthy of a president. "The reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution," Johnson wrote on X. "We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump."
Raids against migrants - protests against Trump
In the West Coast metropolis of Los Angeles, Trump's government justified its intervention and the mobilization of the National Guard in June with alleged chaos and resistance against ICE immigration officials, among other things. US Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem recently announced further deployments by the agency, which is known for raids involving officers, some of whom are masked. There have already been ICE operations in Chicago, Illinois and other federal states - additional resources are now being planned. The raids repeatedly lead to protests against Trump's aggressive migration policy.
After Los Angeles and Washington, Chicago would be the third Democratic-run city in which the president has intervened. There were further demonstrations against Trump's military operations in Washington at the weekend. Meanwhile, the President brought other major cities such as Baltimore into play as locations for a demonstration of his government's power. He has also publicly considered military operations in New York and New Orleans.
