Donald Trump announced today that he will deploy National Guard units to Memphis, Tennessee (southern US), as part of his anti-crime fight that targets major Democrat-controlled cities across the country.

“We’re going to Memphis. Memphis has a lot of problems. The mayor is happy being a Democratic mayor (…). We’re going to work this out like we did in Washington,” the US president said in an interview with Fox News television network, referring to the deployment of federal soldiers and police officers to the capital last month.

“They’ll understand why we call the Pentagon a Department of War”

It should be noted that late last week, Trump had threatened Chicago with military intervention, citing the new name of the Pentagon, now called the “Department of War.”

“I love the smell of deployments in the morning. Chicago will understand why we call it a War Department,” said in a post on Truth Social Trump, who has threatened for several days to send in federal troops to “attack crime.”

The post includes a photo, created by artificial intelligence, showing Trump in a military uniform, with a background of wildfires and a helicopter flying in the orange Chicago sky – while the caption reads “Chipocalypse Now”. It’s a direct reference to Francis Ford Coppola’s film “Apocalypse Now” about the Vietnam War, with a paraphrase of Robert Duval’s famous line: “I like the smell of deportations in the morning.”

Prior to this, the US president had said he might send the military to New Orleans as well.

Ban on Trump’s decision to deploy National Guard to California

Recall, however, that earlier this month, a federal judge ruled to ban the deployment of the National Guard in California, to combat crime.

The order was issued by San Francisco-based District Judge Charles Breyer, based in the Northern District of California.

Trump ordered in June that 4,000 National Guardsmen and 700 active-duty Marines be deployed to Los Angeles, after protests over large-scale raids to detain immigrants in the second-largest US city.