President Donald Trump appears to have set his sights on New Orleans for a National Guard deployment to curb crime.
During a Wednesday press conference, the president touted his decision to federalize law enforcement in Washington, DC, while sending in the National Guard to reduce crime rates. He had previously floated the idea of using troops in other major cities such as Chicago and Baltimore. But this time, he included New Orleans in the mix.
“Washington, DC, is a totally safe city. You're not reporting any crime because there is none. They said, Crime is down 87 percent, and I said, ‘No, it's not. It's down 100 percent,’” Trump said. “We have a great thing going. I could do that with Chicago. We could do that with New York. We could do it with Los Angeles.”
The president continued, “So we're making a determination now, do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great governor, Jeff Landry, who wants us to come in and straighten out a very nice section of this country that's become quite tough, quite bad.”
Trump predicted that his administration would “straighten that out in about two weeks.”
.@POTUS: "We're making a determination now — do we go to Chicago or do we go to a place like New Orleans, where we have a great Governor, @LAGovJeffLandry, who wants us to come in and straighten [it] out." pic.twitter.com/TpQo9uU4B5
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 3, 2025
In a post on X, Gov. Jeff Landry said he would accept Trump’s help “from New Orleans to Shreveport!”
We will take President @realDonaldTrump’s help from New Orleans to Shreveport! https://t.co/K1ES7n4ip1
— Governor Jeff Landry (@LAGovJeffLandry) September 3, 2025
New Orleans Democrats were not happy about Trump’s comments. City Councilmember Oliver Thomas told The Associated Press, “Crime is down in New Orleans” and that sending in National Guard troops “would seem to be very political or a major overreaction!”
Councilmember Jean-Paul Morrell argued that it is “ridiculous to consider sending the National Guard into another American city that hasn’t asked for it.”
“Guardsmen are not trained law enforcement. They can’t solve crimes, they can’t interview witnesses and they aren’t trained to constitutionally police,” Morrell added. “NOPD is doing a great job with the existing resources they have. Marching troops into New Orleans is an unnecessary show of force in effort to create a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.”
Democrat City Council President Helena Moreno said in a statement that “we have had an unprecedented reduction in crime and violence in New Orleans,” Fox News reported.
She characterized the president’s comments as “an attack on certain cities” and claimed “there are many cities aligned with this President whose crime issues are severe, but they’re not targeted.”