President Donald Trump threatened Sunday to send the military to Baltimore to “quickly clean” the crime.
“But if Wes Moore needs help, as Gavin NewScum did in Los Angeles, I will send to the ‘troops’, which is being done in the near DC, and quickly clean the crime,” Trump said in a publication about social truth, referring to the Democratic governors of Maryland and California and using a nickname of Gavin Newsom.
Trump’s comments are the last in a line of threats to replicate the deployment of DC in cities throughout the country after hundreds of national guard troops were taken to DC in what has described as an effort to combat crime, although critics have painted movement as an overreach for political purposes.
He reached to comment, Moore said in a statement that Trump “would prefer to attack the largest cities in his country from behind a desk to walk the streets with the people he represents.”
“The president must join us in Baltimore because the wonderful ignorance, the tropes and tactics of fear of the 1980s do not benefit anyone,” Moore continued. “We need leaders who are there helping people who are really in the field doing the job.”
Trump’s impulse to deploy National Guard troops in cities such as DC is a significant deviation of how presidents generally deploy the guard, which is generally used to respond to situations such as natural disasters and civil disturbances.
The president first deployed thousands of troops and marines of the National Guard to Los Angeles in June amid protests against immigration application actions. Newsom vehemently opposed the measure, accusing Trump of “waiting for chaos so that he can justify more repressions, more fear, more control.”
Trump deployed the National Guard to DC earlier this month as part of an effort declared to combat the crime, although at the time of its announcement, the violent crime had decreased by 26% compared to last year, according to the DC Police data.
NBC News reported last week that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an order that authorized some 2,000 National Guard troops in DC to transport weapons. Police agents have arrested hundreds of people on DC since August 7, according to a White House official.
Maryland’s Moore said Friday that “many of the comments that are being made of the White House detach themselves, so they tone and ignorant” about the fight against crime.
“It’s because they haven’t walked our streets,” he said on CNN on Friday. “They have not been in our communities, and they are more than happy to simply make these repeated tropes about us, but not work with us to make sure our streets are safe and that people can have a real opportunity to feel safe in their own neighborhoods.”
Trump criticized Moore’s comments in his social position Sunday Truth, saying that he assumed that Moore “is talking about control, crime mounted, Baltimore.”
“As president, I would prefer to clean this crime disaster before going there for a ‘walk’,” Trump added.
Baltimore homicides have decreased by more than 24% this year compared to the same period last year, said Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, earlier this month. His office has also said that non -fatal shootings have decreased 18% this year.
Moore said earlier this month in CNN that Trump was using the military as a “tool” for political purposes.
“I take very seriously how, when and why I deploy the members of our National Guard in cases of emergency and in real crises,” he said in the interview. “And I will not authorize the use of the forces of the Maryland National Guard for missions that do not consider being critical or mission aligned.”
The president also threatened To extract federal funds for the replacement of the Key bridge of Francis Scott, which collapsed in 2024. The federal government had previously agreed to pay the bridge replacement.
“I gave Wes Moore a lot of money to fix his demolished bridge,” Trump wrote. “Will I have to rethink that decision?”
Moore criticized Trump’s message, saying in a statement that “any threat to this financing will cause irrevocable damage to the national economy and the entire Maryland state.”
“We have already begun to rebuild, and now that Maryland is showing great progress, our president threatens to intentionally damage Maryland,” he continued.
Representative Johnny Olszewski, D-MD., Said in a statement that responds to Trump’s publication That “Baltimore is making real progress, but maintaining our impulse requires collaboration at all levels of government.”
“The threats of President Trump to deploy troops in American cities and cancel the financing approved by Congress are illegal, useless and directly disagree with that progress,” added Olszewski, who represents parts of Baltimore.
In recent days, Trump has also threatened to deploy the National Guard to other cities. He praised the work of the National Guard on Friday, and said: “I think Chicago will be our next, and then we will help with New York.”
The governor of Illinois, JB Pritzker, responded on Saturday, accusing Trump in a position to “trying to make a crisis, politicizing Americans who serve in uniform and continue to abuse their power to distract from the pain that families are causing.”
