U.S. President Donald Trump makes a fist before boarding Marine One upon departure for New York, as the Washington Monument stands in the background, in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 11, 2025.
Evelyn Hockstein | Reuters
President Donald Trump said Friday that he will send the National Guard to Memphis, Tennessee, one month after he federalized law enforcement in Washington, D.C., and deployed soldiers across the city in an effort to address crime.
“We’re going to Memphis,” Trump said on Fox News, calling the city “deeply troubled.”
Trump said both the state’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee and the Democratic mayor of Memphis, Paul Young, were “happy” with his plan.
“We’re going to fix” the city’s troubles, Trump said of Memphis, “just like we did Washington.”
Local affiliate ABC24 on Wednesday reported that members of the Memphis city council had been briefed on the prospect of a National Guard presence in the city.
Lee said in a statement Friday that he has been in “constant communication” with the Trump administration over multiple months on how to combat crime in Memphis. The governor said he would speak with Trump on Friday afternoon to discuss the details of expanding an FBI-led mission in Memphis dubbed “Operation Viper.”
The White House confirmed the plan in a Friday press release, saying the use of federal resources was part of efforts to “dismantle the rampant violent crime fueled by failed Democrat governance in major cities.”
The Memphis Police Department said this week that overall crime in the first eight months of 2025 is at a 25-year low. Murder hit a six-year low, the department said.
Trump said he was inspired to prioritize Memphis by Jim Vena, the CEO of Union Pacific railroad. Vena is a former board member at FedEx, which is headquartered in Memphis. Vena stepped down from the board in 2023, when he was named to lead Union Pacific.
Trump claimed Vena said he needed to use “an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass” to go one block in Memphis.
Trump said Vena also suggested St. Louis, Missouri, and Chicago as potential cities Trump should look at.
The president has previously said troops would be deployed to Chicago, despite fierce opposition to the idea from the city’s mayor and the Illinois governor.
Trump did not explain what legal framework the White House would use to justify a deployment of soldiers to another U.S. city.
Washington, D.C., sued the Trump administration over its deployment of troops in the U.S. capital earlier this month, arguing that the president had exceeded his constitutional authority.
That suit came days after a federal judge blocked the administration from deploying the National Guard in Los Angeles.
During his interview Friday, Trump criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom and said he expects to win all the court cases related to the National Guard’s deployment.
“We think we’re going to win all of them,” Trump said. “And we have been winning all of them.”