He has highlighted crime in Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Baltimore.
While federalizing the local police and deploying the National Guard in Washington, D.C., President Donald Trump has suggested he could flex his authority to fight violent crime elsewhere.
“We have other cities also that are bad, very bad,” the president said during an Aug. 11 press conference.
He listed Chicago, New York City, Los Angeles, Oakland, and Baltimore among the cities of concern.
Although homicide and other violent crimes have recently dipped across America, the numbers from big cities are still high—in some cases, higher than they were before surges one to two decades ago.
Trump’s power to deploy the National Guard outside the nation’s capital is also under debate. A federal judge is deciding whether his deployment of troops to Los Angeles was lawful.
Here is what you should know.
The President’s Powers
Trump federalized D.C.’s Metropolitan Police Department after declaring a crime emergency.
He did so under Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act, which lets him control the district’s police for up to 30 days without Congressional authorization.
He wants Congress to extend that power, suggesting a national emergency declaration could be a means of sidestepping the legislature if it does not act.
There is no equivalent to the D.C. Home Rule Act in the other big cities Trump named. There, state and local authorities have control over law enforcement.
The National Guard is a trickier question.
U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer is assessing whether Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops to Los Angeles and nearby municipalities violated the Posse Comitatus Act (PCA).
In Washington, the president has deployed the District of Columbia National Guard, which is under clear presidential control.
He did so while keeping them under Title 32 duty status. That shields the president from allegations of violating the PCA. It also leaves them under local authority as they back up the police who are making arrests.
Trump highlighted other possible solutions involving Congress, which is currently in its August recess.
“We’ll count on the Republicans in Congress and the Senate to vote” to end no-cash bail, he said, referencing a legal reality in many cities and states that have drawn his ire.
Illinois, Chicago’s home state, eliminated cash bail in 2023. Los Angeles County did so too for almost all offenses. New York State made a similar change in 2019.
“Maybe they’ll self-clean up, and maybe they’ll self-do this and get rid of the cashless bail thing and all of the things that caused this problem,” Trump said.
Chicago
Although his local authority outside Washington may be limited, Trump has floated interventions against crime outside the capital.
The Second City seems to be first in his mind.
“If we need to, we’re going to do the same thing in Chicago,” he said during his Aug. 11 press conference.
The Chicago Police Department recorded 573 homicides in 2024, more than any other U.S. city. That is down from 620 in 2023.
Shootings and the number of shooting victims also fell, though both still numbered in the thousands. Vehicular hijackings have declined, too.
There were 188 homicides during the first half of 2025, marking a 32 percent decrease from the same period in 2024.
Chicago’s homicide rate stood at more than 21 per 100,000 in 2024.
That homicide rate, though high, has trended down from even higher rates during the 1990s.
Yet, rates were lower than today during the 2000s and early 2010s, according to an analysis from the University of Chicago Crime Lab.
An Illinois Policy Institute analysis found that the arrest rate for homicides has also fallen, declining from 42 percent a decade ago to 27 percent from June 2024 through June 2025.
New York City
“I’m going to look at New York in a little while,” Trump said.
Though rates and numbers differ, New York City’s violent crime trends resemble Chicago’s.
Homicides and other serious felonies have recently trended down, but, in some cases, remain higher than they were 10 or 15 years ago.
In 2024, for example, there were 382 murders and non-negligible manslaughters in the Big Apple, according to city data on crime complaints.
That is below a recent peak in 2021, which saw 488 such cases, and well below much higher totals decades ago, like in 2000, when there were 673 murders and non-negligible manslaughters.
Yet, 2024’s figure tops the numbers for 2013 through 2019, the start of Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty. Those totals dipped as low as 292 in 2017 before surging to the recent 488-murder peak during his last year in office.
As of Aug. 10, the New York Police Department had recorded 188 murders in 2025—down 23.6 percent from the same period in 2024. Robberies and felonious assaults were also down relative to the same period, while rape was up 21.6 percent.
In 2024, there were 29,461 felonious assaults in the city, up from recent years and from troughs as low as 16,284 in 2008. Rape was also up, with 1,748 incidents that year as compared to 1,455 in 2023.
Los Angeles, Baltimore, and Oakland
“Hopefully L.A. is watching,” Trump said during his press conference.
He also referenced another California city, Oakland, and nearby Baltimore, saying the two are “so far gone.”
Federal Bureau of Investigation data show 264 homicides in Los Angeles in 2024. That’s down from 327 in 2023 as reported by the Los Angeles Police Department.
In 2013, there were 251 murders in the city.
Los Angeles recorded a major decline in murders during the first half of 2025. Mayor Karen Bass touted a trend that suggests numbers could hit lows in 2025 not seen in 60 years.
In 2024, Oakland witnessed 81 murders and non-negligent manslaughters, according to FBI data. The city saw 120 murders in 2023 as recorded by the Oakland Police Department in its end-of-year report.
The 2024 figure is comparable to lows from the late 1990s and early 2000s, as recorded in an analysis from the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. During the early 1990s, Oakland regularly had more than 140 homicides.
During the first half of 2025, Oakland recorded a 21 percent decline in homicides relative to the first half of 2024.
Baltimore saw 201 homicides in 2024, down from 260 in 2023, according to the Baltimore Police Department. Last year’s total is on par with numbers from a decade ago.
The 2024 numbers give it a homicide rate of more than 35 per 100,000, making it one of America’s deadliest large cities.
Charm City’s midyear report in 2025 recorded 68 homicides, down from 88 over the same period in 2024.
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