Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker is again pushing back on President Donald Trump’s threat to deploy the National Guard to Chicago to combat crime.
Speaking Tuesday at a press conference, Pritzker called the president "unhinged" and suggested firmly that he has no intention of calling the president to ask for troops to be sent in.
WATCH | Gov. Pritzker responds to Trump's threat to send National Guard into Chicago
"When did we become a country where it's okay for the U.S. president to insist on national television that a state should call him to beg for anything," Pritzker said. "Especially something we don't want. Have we truly lost sense of sanity in this nation that we treat this as normal?"
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It comes after President Trump on Tuesday called Chicago a "hell hole" and hinted again at sending troops into the city to fight crime.
"Chicago's very interesting because I watch Pritzker get up and say about 'we don't need help, we're safe,' but two weeks ago they had six people murdered," the president said. "There's no place, there's no place in the world — including, you can go to Afghanistan — you can go to places that you wouldn't think of. They don't even come close to this."
Federal law allows a president to deploy the National Guard under certain circumstances, but many Democrats argue that the legal threshold for such action has not been met. Pritzker has also said that he would take legal action, if necessary, to prevent U.S. military forces from patrolling the streets of Chicago.
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Last month, President Trump ordered troops be deployed throughout Washington, D.C., to fight crime in the nation's capital. In the weeks since, federal officials say crime has moderately dropped. However, expanding deployments to other cities could prove more difficult legally than in Washington, which is not a state.
