Overview
- In a Truth Social post, the president said Chicago would "understand why it's called the Ministry of War," pairing the threat with an apparent AI image styled after Apocalypse Now and the line, "I like the smell of evictions in the morning."
- The post followed a decree signed Friday renaming the U.S. Department of Defense the "Ministry of War," which the president framed as a show of strength.
- Pritzker responded on X that "this is not a joke" and accused the president of threatening to go to war with an American city.
- Trump has labeled Chicago a "rat hole" and the "murder capital of the world" and has floated sending the National Guard there after earlier deployments in Los Angeles and patrols by uniformed federal troops in Washington, D.C.
- Hundreds to thousands marched in Washington on Saturday to protest what demonstrators called an "occupation," and the president has also mentioned New Orleans without any action so far.