During his bid for a second term in office, Donald Trump made battling crime a centerpiece of his campaign. Past presidential candidates have similarly used crime as a campaign tactic. Bill Clinton, then-governor of Arkansas, made sure to oversee an execution in his home state while running for president to cement a tough-on-crime persona in the public imagination. George H.W. Bush ran an infamous ad against Michael Dukakis in their battle for the White House, accusing Dukakis of being soft on crime because as governor he presided over a furlough program in Massachusetts that led to one recipient of a furlough brutally attacking a couple. Making crime fighting part of a political campaign is nothing new. Indeed, since Barry Goldwater first focused on crime in his bid for the presidency and Nixon turned it into a winning campaign strategy, it has been a staple of presidential campaigns.
Trump, however, brought something new and frightening to the table. Whereas other presidential candidates suggested new laws, tougher sentences, or more funding for police to combat crime, Trump emphasized his intention to use the military. He told supporters in Iowa at a campaign stop that he would use the military to address “crime dens” in places like New York and Chicago. The reason no other candidate for president has used that as their crime-fighting strategy is that other candidates have recognized the long tradition in the United States of keeping the military out of domestic law enforcement. They also undoubtedly did not want to run afoul of the Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in 1878 and bars the use of the military to engage in civilian law enforcement.
Trump, in contrast, has shown no reservations about using the military for domestic law enforcement. He first deployed National Guard troops in Los Angeles, ostensibly to protect federal buildings and agents in the face of protests against immigration enforcement there. District Court Judge Chuck Breyer recently found that deployment violated the Posse Comitatus Act. Trump next used the National Guard in the District of Columbia. Unlike other state and territorial National Guards, the D.C. Guard is under presidential control, so the president has broader authority to use them. The D.C. Attorney General, however, recently filed a lawsuit challenging their deployment in D.C. as in excess of the president’s authority and in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. Whether Judge Breyer’s opinion survives appellate review or the D.C. Attorney General lawsuit succeeds will depend on how broadly courts view the authorizations Trump relied on.
But putting aside the legal questions, there remains the question of whether using the National Guard actually makes sense as a crime fighting strategy. The National Guard has no training when it comes to street policing, investigations, or law enforcement. They do not have the power to make arrests. If the federal government wants to help local communities fight crime, it makes far more sense to offer federal resources that specialize in combatting crime, such as agents and resources from the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
Indeed, that explains Maryland Governor Wes Moore’s response to Trump’s threat to send in National Guard troops to Baltimore. Governor Moore said he would welcome federal assistance, but that the National Guard threat is “performative” and “ridiculous.” If the president were serious about combatting crime, Moore said the conversation would be about FBI and ATF support in partnership with local police. Several mayors have expressed similar views, noting their openness to having federal agents help them trace guns and work on task forces with local agencies.
Trump, however, seems uninterested in offering that kind of assistance to communities trying to tackle crime. He wants to slash ATF’s workforce, for example, by cutting 541 of the roughly 800 investigators at the agency who monitor gun sales. The 2026 proposed budget for the FBI also seeks to shrink the agency’s resources.
Moreover, unless the Guard presence is going to be permanent, it would be at most a temporary band-aid. If it reduces crime at all, it would do so only because would-be criminals might believe the presence of more eyes on the street increases the odds their criminal activity will be detected. Once the troops are gone, nothing about the root causes of crime will have changed. As one D.C. resident noted, the people thinking about crime are “still going to kill, they’re still going to do all they’re doing as soon as you’re gone. It’s not fixing, it’s just blanketing a situation, but it’s not addressing the issues.”
Real crime reduction requires investments in communities, from cleaning up vacant lots to supporting community organizations and summer job programs for young people. Here, too, Trump shows no interest in providing relief. His “big beautiful bill” decimates social safety net programs, which have been proven to help reduce criminal activity. Cutting this aid will thus lead to more crime, not less.
Deploying troops is a political stunt to make it seem like Trump is a tough guy on crime, and it’s no coincidence that he has been focused on cities with Democratic African American mayors. Plenty of cities in America have rising homicide rates, yet Trump is focusing on places that have seen their crime rates decline over the past couple years. Trump is using crime as a decoy to desensitize people to the use of military personnel on domestic soil. It is also a distraction from the pursuit of the truth in the Epstein case, and Trump’s links to it.
Deploying the National Guard is about many things, but it is not about fighting crime. If Trump were serious about that, he would deploy different federal resources, and none of them would involve people in military uniforms.
