Donald Trump accused of ‘turning military on American citizens’ over plans to send National Guard to Chicago – US politics live

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Rahm Emanuel, a Democratic former Illinois congressman, chief of staff to former president Barack Obama, and a former mayor of Chicago, also appeared on CNN on Sunday urging people to reflect that Trump, in two terms of office, had only ever deployed US troops in American cities, never overseas.

Emanuel said if he was still mayor he would call on the president to act like a partner and, although crime was coming down, to “work with us on public safety” to combat carjackings, gun crime and gangs and not “come in and act like we can be an occupied city”.

He added about Trump’s agenda:

He gave his speech in Iowa, he said ‘I hate’ Democrats, and this may be a reflection of that.” The speech was in July, when Trump excoriated Democrats in Congress who refused to vote for his One Big Beautiful Bill, the flagship legislation of the second Trump administration so far that focuses on tax cuts for the wealthy, massive boosts for the anti-immigration agenda and benefits cuts to programs such as Medicaid, which provides health insurance for poor Americans.

Richard Luscombe

Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.

Jeffries, appearing on CNN’s State of the Union, accused the US president of “playing games with the lives of Americans” with his unprecedented domestic deployment of the military, which has escalated to include the arming of troops currently patrolling Washington, DC – after sending troops into Los Angeles in June.

The mayor of Chicago, Brandon Johnson, said any such plan from Trump was perpetrating “the most flagrant violation of our constitution in the 21st century”.

Late on Friday, Pentagon officials confirmed to Fox News that up to 1,700 men and women of the national guard were poised to mobilize in 19 mostly Republican states to support Trump’s anti-immigration crackdown by assisting the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (Ice) with “logistical support and clerical functions”.

Jeffries said he supported a statement issued by the Democratic governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, that Trump was “abusing his power” in talking about sending the national guard to Chicago, and distracting from the pain he said the president was causing American families.

Jeffries said in an interview with CNN on Sunday morning:

We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow Donald Trump to play games with the lives of the American people as part of his effort to manufacture a crisis and create a distraction because he’s deeply unpopular.”

He continued:

I strongly support the statement that was issued by governor Pritzker making clear that there’s no basis, no authority for Donald Trump to potentially try to drop federal troops into the city of Chicago.”

Illinois senator Tammy Duckworth has said in a statement that Trump’s national guard plan for Chicago “distracts the military from executing its core mission of keeping Americans safe from real adversaries”.

In a statement, she said:

We know this isn’t about ‘law and order’ because Trump is once again refusing to coordinate with state and local officials. And if he really cared about ‘health and safety,’ he wouldn’t have cut millions of dollars in gun violence prevention funding just weeks ago.

This is just another attempt to distract the American people from the price increases his own policies are causing and the various personal scandals he wants to change the subject from.

Forcing the military, uninvited, into Chicago to intimidate Americans in their own communities does not make our nation stronger, it simply distracts the military from executing its core mission of keeping Americans safe from real adversaries who wish us harm.

Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi also responded to reports that president Donald Trump is planning to send national guard troops to Chicago.

In a statement, he accused Trump of mounting an “illegal attempt to militarize Chicago” and called the president’s actions a “flagrant abuse of power”.

He said:

President Trump’s illegal attempt to militarize Chicago will do nothing but spark chaos and create spectacle.

There is no emergency in Illinois that warrants federalizing our national guard or deploying active-duty troops into our communities – just as there was no justification in Washington or Los Angeles. Donald Trump’s flagrant abuses of power must end.

Our brave servicemen and women are not pawns in his political games.

Trump accused of 'turning the military on American citizens' with Chicago national guard plan

Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog. My name is Tom Ambrose and I’ll be bringing you the latest news lines over the next few hours.

We start with news that Donald Trump has been accused of “turning the military on American citizens” after a Pentagon official confirmed that planning is under way to send National Guard troops to Chicago.

Illinois attorney-general Kwame Raoul also told CBS News that the president’s actions are both “un-American” and “unwise strategically”.

Accusing the president of “turning our military on American citizens in his ongoing attempts to move our nation toward authoritarianism,” he added:

His actions are not just un-American. They are unwise strategically. Our cities are not made safer by deploying the nation’s service members for civilian law enforcement duties when they do not have the appropriate training.

To be clear: We have made no such request for the type of federal intervention we have seen in Los Angeles or Washington DC. There is no emergency in the state of Illinois.

It comes as lieutenant-governor Juliana Stratton accused Trump of pursuing “political theatrics, not safety,” since crime in Chicago is already declining and there was no local request for troops.

In a statement to ABC7 Chicago, she said:

Tonight’s reporting from the Washington Post that President Trump is preparing to deploy federal troops in Chicago proves what we all know: he is willing to go to any lengths possible to create chaos if it means more political power-no matter who gets hurt.

As lieutenant-governor and throughout my career, I’ve fervently fought for the reformation of our criminal legal system and under the Pritzker-Stratton administration, we’ve made tremendous progress.

Crime in Chicago is declining and there’s absolutely no rationale for this decision, other than to distract from the pain Trump is inflicting on working families with his dangerous agenda. Illinois, governor Pritzker and I are here to stand for your rights, your freedoms, and will protect you against whatever storms of hate and fear come our way.

Earlier on Sunday, Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said Donald Trump has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops into Chicago next, over the heads of local leaders.

Read our full report here:

In other developments:

• France summoned the American ambassador Charles Kushner after he wrote a letter to president Emmanuel Macron alleging France had failed to do enough to stem antisemitic violence, a French foreign ministry spokesperson said on Sunday.

• Sergei Lavrov, Moscow’s most senior diplomat, praised efforts by Donald Trump to end the war, in an interview on NBC on Sunday, while US vice-president JD Vance said Washington would “keep on trying” to broker talks in the absence of a deal.

• In the opening weeks of Donald Trump’s second term, Gavin Newsom wagered that peacemaking was best: a tarmac greeting for Air Force One, an Oval Office visit and a podcast slot for Maga’s biggest names. But then Trump came for California, and its governor dropped the niceties. Read the full report here.

• The president and his allies have been accused of executing a “pattern of lawfare” akin to those exerted by authoritarian regimes in Hungary and Russia after adopting a new strategy to target political opponents: allegations of mortgage fraud. Read the full report here.

• The justice department is alleging in a new court filing that three Smartmatic executives who were indicted last year on bribery and money-laundering charges transferred money from a 2018 voting machine contract with Los Angeles county into slush funds that were originally set up to pay bribes to overseas election officials.