Richard Arnold: US Correspondent on Trump escalating his threats to deploy the National Guard

Donald Trump is escalating his threat to deploy the National Guard in Democrat-run cities. 

He’s doing it under the guise of cracking down on crime, beginning with Washington DC. New York City, Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Chicago were among the cities singled out. 

The US President called Chicago a “mess”, and derided its mayor, Brandon Johnson, as “grossly incompetent”. 

The Illinois Governor, JB Pritzker, is hitting back at Trump, saying it’s not about fighting crime but rather finding an excuse to deploy the military and intimidate his political rivals. 

US Correspondent Richard Arnold told Mike Hosking that in the past, the National Guard has been temporarily deployed by state governors only, not the federal government, so this is all new.  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Richard Donald, morning to you, and no wind turbines in
front of Trump golf courses round.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Not where are we hitting to nixt with the National Guard?

Speaker 1 (00:07):
Now it is Chicago. Trump is escalating his threat to
send armed National Guards into Democrat run cities. He's calling
the state's governor, JB. Pritzkipp a slob, saying at his
cabinet session a short time ago.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
You would think that Illinois would have such a problem
with crime, such a bad governor. He should be calling
me and he should be saying, could you send over
the troops? It's out of control.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Britsckier says he has a somewhat different message for Trump.
He says, this.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Is not about fighting crime. 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 rival.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
Stan of Chicago, says Pritzki, who says Trump wants to
be a dictator. Trump says, so.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
A lot of people say, you know, that's the case.
I'd rather have it, but I'm not addictedtor I just
had to stop crime.

Speaker 1 (01:04):
On that crime issue, pritz Gier is responding with.

Speaker 4 (01:07):
This eight of the top ten states with the highest
homicide rates are led by Republicans. None of those states
is Illinois. Memphis, Tennessee, Hattiesburg, Mississippi have higher crime rates
than Chicago, and yet Donald Trump is sending troops here
and not there. Ask yourself why.

Speaker 1 (01:29):
Well, Trump appears to have way more in mind with this.
He's just signed an order for a major expansion of
the National Guard's role in policing, because for the creation
of specially trained units that can be mobilized quickly to
quote unquote and sure public order. In the past, national
guards have been temporary deployed by state governors only, not
by the Feds, and mostly to help out in the

(01:51):
wake of natural disasters. So all this is new. Pritzker says,
if he sounds alarmist, it is because he is sounding
an alarm He says also the crimes are down in
Chicago and that residents do not want armed troops running
around in their streets. He also warned the Trump team.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
If you hurt my people, nothing will stop me, not
time or political circumstance, from making sure that you face
justice under our constitutional.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Rule of law. Tough talk. Well, we've seen some Trump
to play guards in La and in the US Capital
surveys in both cities showing that large numbers of residents
opposed this. Pritzker's remarks, though, are the toughest we have
heard to date in this ongoing challenge.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Right Lisa Cook, Nike's problem, plenty of lawyers and Ice
humid ends up in the Supreme Court eventually.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Lawyers always do well. Yeah, but none of this is
a done deal. For the first time ever, a president
has sought to fire a federal Reserve governor, Lisa Cook,
who is first black woman ever to serve on that
seven member panel. She says she's not going, She won't quit.
She is now suing over the attempt by Trump to
dismiss her that was announced today. Trump says he is
pressing ahead with it all, so it's likely to go

(02:57):
before the US Supreme Court process. It could obviously take
months and months and months. There is a betting game
going around among some self described experts who suggest there's
only a thirty percent chance that she'll be ousted before
US end. Wall Street now seems to be taking all
of this in stride. There has been a little activity
on the market indexes today session the Trump team science

(03:18):
and accusation against Corklid mortgage fraud. She denies any wrongdoings.
She hasn't been charged with anything. Nobel Prize winning Economy
Paul Krugman is a bit more agitated about this, and
investors seem to be. He is saying this is a.

Speaker 5 (03:30):
Five lar fire as a message to everybody else on
the Fed's board and basically to government officials of any
kind that get in our way. Don't act as an
obedient minion of Donald Trump, and we will ruin you.
We will destroy you.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
You know, everyday folks have a stake in all this
as well. Trump has routinely slammed Jerome Powell FED chair,
calling him stupid, a numb skull, a more, on and
on and on and on. But since FED chairs are
supposed to be independently, conventional thinking has been if you
sack the FED boss, all hell could break loose. Meantime,
interest rates remain high because of the anti inflation battle,
so if you do, consumers wind up paying for it all.

Speaker 2 (04:11):
So you put Richard on the stateside and just we've
got problems because Elbow's got problems, and Elbow's got problems
because Crunk doesn't like it. So what's happened here is
this is the bargaining code, the news bargaining code. Australia
is trying to get the big tech companies you met as,
your Googles, your facebooks, to pay for local news services.
So basically, they nic it. They see something on the
ABC in Australia, they knick it, they put it on

(04:32):
their feed and they make money out of it. We
don't like it. We don't like it here, they don't
like it there. So the news bargaining Code we were doing.
We've done similar deals, but big tech have worked out
they don't need to do deals anymore anyway. So Australia
was looking to pass legislation, We were looking to follow them.
If it was successful, it isn't going to be because
Trump said yesterday, if you pass that, you're attacking American industry.

(04:52):
If you're attacking American industry, I'm going to tear us
the producers out of you. So that's the end of that.
Both there and here.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
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