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

<p>Illinois attorney general says president’s actions are ‘un-American’ and there is no emergency as Pentagon official confirms plans to send troops to city</p><p><strong>Hakeem Jeffries, House minority leader and New York Democratic congressman, said <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump">Donald Trump</a> has “manufactured a crisis” to justify sending federalized national guard troops <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/22/trump-troops-dc-new-york-chicago">into Chicago</a> next, over the heads of local leaders.</strong></p><p><a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/hakeem-jeffries">Jeffries</a>, 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 <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/22/trump-troops-dc-new-york-chicago">arming of troops</a> currently patrolling Washington, DC – after <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/los-angeles-ice-protests">sending</a> troops into Los Angeles in June.</p><p>We should continue to support local law enforcement and not simply allow <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/donaldtrump">Donald Trump</a> 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.”</p><p>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.”</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/aug/25/donald-trump-national-guard-plans-chicago-washington-dc-us-politics-latest-updates-news">Continue reading...</a>

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