White House border czar Tom Homan is doubling down on President Donald Trump’s stated plans to send the National Guard to Chicago, telling CNN that the next steps in the White House crime crackdown could come to the fore next week.
“Absolutely,” he told Jake Tapper on Sunday on “State of the Union.” “You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country. President Trump’s prioritized sanctuary cities because sanctuary cities knowingly release illegal alien public safety threats to the streets every day. That’s where the problem is.”
Trump dispatched National Guard troops to Washington and took control of the city’s police department in August — much to the chagrin of city residents who overwhelmingly oppose the takeover. But boasting that the nation’s capital is “NOW A CRIME FREE ZONE,” the president has looked to cities such as Chicago, New Orleans and Baltimore as perhaps next in his nationwide immigration and crime crackdown.
“We’re going in,” he said of a coming National Guard deployment to Chicago last Tuesday.
“They’re a force multiplier,” Homan told Tapper. “They’re on the table. I mean, they have been used by every administration since I have been working for the government starting in 1984. Every administration has used the Guard and the military on the border. And they have been very beneficial.”
But Trump only further inflamed tensions on Saturday, when he took to Truth Social with an image depicting himself as Lt. Col. Bill Kilgore from the 1979 Vietnam War epic “Apocalypse Now.”
“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War,” the post read, referencing an order he signed Friday rebranding the Defense Department.
Immediately, Democrats in Illinois and throughout the Windy City raised alarm at the veiled threat.
Homan played down their concerns, telling Tapper that Trump’s quip was taken out of context, and that the president intends to go to war not with the city of Chicago, but with its criminal cartels.
“President Trump and this administration, yes, we’re at war with the criminal cartels and those who want to murder and rape American citizens,” he said. “You’re damn right.”
