Trump orders National Guard, FBI to Memphis in new crime crackdown

President Donald Trump signed a memorandum Monday establishing a task force to address crime in Memphis, Tennessee, akin to his initiative cracking down on crime in Washington. 

“I’m signing a presidential memorandum to establish the Memphis Safe Task Force,” Trump said in the Oval Office Monday. “And it’s very important because of the crime that’s going on, not only in Memphis, in many cities, that we’re going to take care of all of them a step by step, just like we did in D.C.” 

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Trump said the effort would include the National Guard, the FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the Drug Enforcement Administration, Homeland Security Investigations and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. 

Trump said in a Friday interview with “Fox & Friends” that Memphis, Tennessee, is “troubled” and that “we’re going to fix that just like we did Washington.” 

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Trump initially mobilized 800 D.C. National Guard troops to reduce crime in Washington Aug. 11. Additionally, National Guard troops from Ohio, West Virginia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee were dispatched to support the Trump administration’s effort. 

“It’s very important because of the crime that’s going on, not only in Memphis, in many cities,” Trump said Monday. “The task force will be a replica of our extraordinarily successful efforts here, and you’ll see it’s a lot of the same thing.”

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National Guard troops are reserve forces that are activated to handle state and federal operations, like natural disasters. State governments typically oversee their respective National Guard forces. However, the federal government oversees the District of Columbia National Guard.

Trump said that the request to address crime in Memphis came from Tennessee’s Republican Gov. Bill Lee. Meanwhile, Memphis’ Mayor Paul Young, a Democrat, said in a Saturday interview with CNN that he wasn’t “happy” about the upcoming deployment.