US President Donald Trump threatened on Sunday to send the military to Baltimore, Maryland, to deal with crime, NBC reported.
"But if Wes Moore needs help, like Gavin Newsom did in Los Angeles, I will send the "troops", which is being done in nearby Washington, D.C., and I will quickly clean up crime", Trump wrote on Truth Social, referring to the Democratic governors of Maryland and California and using a derogatory name for Gavin Newsom.
When asked for comment, Moore said in a statement that Trump "would rather attack the largest cities of his country from behind a desk than walk the streets with the people he represents".
"The president needs to join us in Baltimore because blissful ignorance and 1980s scare tactics are not helping anyone, Moore continued. We need leaders who are out there helping people who are actually out there doing the work."
Moore said on CNN this month that Trump is using the military as a "tool" for political purposes.
Trump's decisions to send troops have been met with sharp criticism from both local officials and Democrats in Congress.
Trump does not have the authority to deploy troops to Chicago. This was stated on Sunday by the Democratic Minority Leader of the House of Representatives (the lower house of Congress) Hakeem Jeffries.
Jeffries said that any such attempt is an attempt by Trump to create a crisis.
He cited comments made by J.B. Pritzker, the Democratic governor of Illinois, who said that there is no emergency that requires the deployment of the National Guard or other military.
Newsom strongly opposed the move, accusing Trump of "hoping for chaos so that he can justify more repression, more fear, more control".
Trump said on Friday that his administration's efforts to fight crime would continue after the intervention in Washington.
"I think Chicago will be the next city, and then we will help New York," he told reporters.
Trump called Chicago a "mess" and added that the mayor was "grossly incompetent".
The US president insisted that the people of Chicago "are calling on us to come".
Earlier this month, Trump attempted to use emergency powers to take control of the capital's police department.
He deployed National Guard troops and sent hundreds of federal law enforcement officers to the capital. The White House said more than 600 people had been arrested on various charges and dozens of homeless encampments had been cleared.
The crackdown was criticized as excessive by the city's mayor and other officials. Vice President J.D. Vance and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth were booed by protesters during a photo op with National Guard members on Wednesday.