NEW YORK (WABC) — Visitors to the nation’s capital this week are seeing armed National Guard troops – 2,200 of them – and while no such order has been given to deploy troops in New York City so far, a big question is whether or not the Trump administration could see a need to do so.
National Guard troops have been deployed, not to high crime areas of Washington, D.C., but instead at national monuments and in train stations.
“They’re armed, capable of defending themselves and others, if need be, supporting law enforcement,” U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said.
But Commissioner Jessica Tisch says the NYPD doesn’t need that kind of support, telling Attorney General Pam Bondi in a sit-down meeting on Monday that the department can handle the city’s crime, and that gun violence is down so far this year.
Bondi appeared publicly at Brooklyn Federal on Monday before the meeting with Tisch.
According to a source, the two also discussed drones.
The commissioner has made no secret that the NYPD would like the authority to take down drones suspected in criminal activity, authority only the federal government currently has.
The Trump administration is now flexing the federal muscle of the National Guard or considering it in other major cities.
Violent crime is also down in Chicago in the last four years, and the governor of Illinois says National Guard troops aren’t needed.
“This is about Donald Trump searching for any justification to deploy the military in a blue city, in a blue state, to try and intimidate his political rivals,” Illinois Governor JB Pritzker said.
The cities with the highest violent crime rates are in red states: St. Louis and New Orleans. They have Democratic mayors, but are in states with Republican governors, and it’s governors that can decide whether to deploy National Guard troops.
On Monday, ABC News’ Rachel Scott asked the president if he would consider sending them to cities with high crime in red states.
“Sure. But there aren’t that many of them. If you look at the top 25 cities for crime, just about every one of those cities is run by Democrats,” President Donald Trump said.
President Trump also signed an order on Monday that would strip federal funding from states and cities that use cashless bail. That also involves Attorney General Bondi, who will have 30 days to create a list of jurisdictions that have eliminated it.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued a statement on Monday, calling it reckless to withhold federal funds, saying it would only undercut law enforcement and make communities less safe.
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