The governor of Illinois is warning if
Donald Trump goes ahead with his plan to
flood members of the National Guard and
other federal agencies onto the streets
of Chicago, the US president will be
abusing his powers. He's already
unleashed the National Guard on
Washington DC, of course, to deal with
what the president calls a crime wave,
even though official stat statistics
show that violent crime in the US
capital is at a 30-year low. who the
president said on Friday he is planning
to do the same in both Chicago and New
York. Both of them like Washington
Democratic Party strongholds. I'm
delighted to say we're joined this
afternoon by Lynnu, the Washington
bureau chief for the Chicago Sun Times,
highly regarded uh writer here in
Washington DC. Lynnu, thanks very much
indeed uh for joining me on the program
and for your patience this afternoon.
Uh, Donald Trump's going to go ahead and
do this, isn't he?
>> My analysis is President Trump acts
first and deals with the legalities
later. So, my guess is uh judge, it's
not a guess based on any on just what
you said on his past performance. I
would expect some kind of troops uh
maybe Marines like he sent into Los
Angeles national or national guard to
come to Chicago. Uh, Governor Pritsker
last night put out a statement and he
said, "Donald Trump is attempting to
manufacture a crisis, politicize
Americans who serve in uniform, and
continue abusing his power to distract
from the pain he is causing working
families. We will continue to follow the
law, stand up for the sovereignty of our
state, and protect the people of
Illinois." So far, there is no official
communication between President Trump,
the city of Chicago, or the state of
Illinois or the Defense Department or
any other military authority.
>> Yeah, I saw last night, Lynn, that the
mayor of Chicago called the proposed
action an unlawful deployment that is
both uncalled for and unsound. On the
issue there of the legality of all of
this, when the president decided to put
National Guard troops on the streets of
Washington DC, he had quite a lot of
leeway because he actually revoked uh
part of the law that allows Washington
DC, which is not a state, to govern its
own affairs and basically took over
policing and law enforcement in the
state. How constrained would he be
legally in Illinois uh which is a state
and which does have the right to govern
its own affairs not uh you know simply
uh by dent uh of the president's
personal grace and favor. How much uh
constraint does that place on his
ability to do what he says he's going to
do?
>> Well, it may not put the constraint that
that one might think in theory because
I'm dealing with reality here. Uh,
President Trump flouts the law and
ignores judicial rulings when he wants
to and that's what I think is going to
cause a potential showdown if he sends
troops to Chicago. It is not legal in
the analysis of anyone with any
authority in Chicago or the state of
Illinois because as you said uh we are
this is going to be the test case
because states are not the District of
Columbia. uh they have far more power to
handle their own affairs and to uh
commander and command their own national
guard. In order to send Illinois
National Guard troops to the streets of
Chicago or anywhere in the state, uh
they the president first would have to
federalize them. And yes, there's a
procedure and yes, there's a law in the
United States called posy commatatitis
against sending active duty troops in.
But we've already seen in Los Angeles
that the president has sent in Marines
on what officials call a pretext and
what surely seems to be and if he sends
active duty troops to Chicago, it will
be a pretext because no one has asked
for them to be sent.
>> Lynu, I'm enormously grateful to you for
your time today. Thanks so much for
coming on to the program. Linsweet is
the Washington bureau chief for the
Chicago Sun Times. And of course, in
broader political terms, what Donald
Trump is trying to do through all of
these deployments and proposed
deployments is flood the streets of
Democratic Party strongholds, Washington
DC, New York, Los uh uh Chicago, uh
maybe Los Angeles after that, maybe
Baltimore. He wants to flood the zone
with federal troops to brand the
Democrats who run those jurisdictions as
being soft on crime. Even though in many
of those jurisdictions, they would turn
around and point to crime statistics
like the ones in Washington DC showing
violent crime at a 30-year low point.