US President Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to expand his military deployments to more Democratic-led cities, responding to an offer by Maryland’s governor to join him in a tour of Baltimore by saying he might instead “send in the troops”.

Last week, Trump said he was considering Chicago and New York for troop deployments similar to what he has unleashed on the nation’s capital, where thousands of National Guard and federal police officers are patrolling the streets.

Trump made the threat to Baltimore in a row with Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat who has criticised Trump’s unprecedented flex of federal power aimed at combating crime and homelessness in Washington. Moore last week invited Trump to visit his state to discuss public safety and walk the streets.

In a Truth Social post on Sunday, Trump said Moore asked “in a rather nasty and provocative tone”, and then raised the spectre of repeating the National Guard deployment he made in Los Angeles over the objections of California’s Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom.

“Wes Moore’s record on Crime is a very bad one, unless he fudges his figures on crime like many of the other ‘Blue States’ are doing.

“But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newscum did in L.A., I will send in the ‘troops,’ which is being done in nearby DC, and quickly clean up the Crime,” Trump wrote, citing a pejorative nickname he uses frequently for the California governor.