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President Trump, who has sent the military into Los Angeles and Washington, has targeted states and cities governed by Democrats.
Aug. 26, 2025, 10:22 p.m. ET
President Trump declared on Tuesday that he had unlimited power as president to deploy the National Guard in any state, after musing whether people would call him a dictator for doing so.
In a televised cabinet meeting that lasted more than three hours, Mr. Trump attacked Gov. JB Pritzker of Illinois, a Democrat who has pushed back against a threat by the president to deploy troops in Chicago in an expansion of the crackdown on crime he is conducting in Washington.
“You have a guy in Illinois, the governor of Illinois, saying that crime has been much better in Chicago recently and Trump is a dictator,” Mr. Trump said. “Most people are saying, ‘If you call him a dictator, if he stops crime, he can be whatever he wants’ — I am not a dictator, by the way.”
About half an hour later, Mr. Trump said that he “would have much more respect for Pritzker” if the governor approved a National Guard deployment in his state.
“Not that I don’t have — I would — the right to do anything I want to do,” Mr. Trump said. “I’m the president of the United States. If I think our country is in danger — and it is in danger in these cities — I can do it.”
Referring to Mr. Pritzker, Mr. Trump continued: “No problem going in and solving, you know, his difficulties. But it would be nice if they’d call and they say, ‘Would you do it?’”
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