The president shared a meme captioned, ‘Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.’
President Donald Trump on Sept. 6, amplified his rhetoric on sending National Guard troops to Chicago by posting a meme that avowed his love of deportations and linked his recent rebranding of the Department of Defense to the Department of War to his focus on this city.
“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” reads the caption for the meme Trump shared on his Truth Social platform. The caption was superimposed over an image of Trump in a military-style uniform, squatting in front of a fiery backdrop, with a series of helicopters flying past a city skyline.
“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” the meme caption continues.
The meme also includes a logo reading “Chipocalypse Now,” with the meme invoking the Vietnam War film “Apocalypse Now” and a scene from the film in which an Army officer oversees a bloody helicopter-borne assault on a Vietnamese village.
Trump recently raised the idea of sending National Guard troops to intervene in Chicago’s law enforcement amid concerns for local residents’ safety.
The social media post also comes a day after the president signed an executive order to refer to the Department of Defense as the Department of War, and to the position of the Secretary of Defense as the Secretary of War. A full renaming of the department and its Cabinet secretary will require an act of Congress but Trump has said the rebranding has “a stronger sound” and evokes a focus on winning wars.
Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker was quick to condemn Trump’s social media post and inferred a warlike threat from the president’s message.
“The President of the United States is threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal,” Pritzker wrote in a post on X on Saturday. “Donald Trump isn’t a strongman, he’s a scared man. Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
A federal law known as the Posse Comitatus Act limits the use of active duty armed forces and federalized National Guard for domestic law enforcement purposes. Some limited authorities, including the Insurrection Act, allow a president to commit federalized troops to domestic law enforcement purposes.
Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson have already indicated that they plan to raise legal challenges if Trump deploys National Guard troops in the city.
State and local leaders have already raised legal challenges to similar troop deployments, ordered by Trump in Los Angeles and in the nation’s capital.
The White House has defended Trump’s recent talk of a crackdown in Chicago and pushed back on local leaders opposing the potential action.
“It is despicable that state and local leaders in Illinois would rather let crime continue to plague their cities than partner with President Trump to make their communities safe again,” spokeswoman Taylor Rogers told The Epoch Times this week.
Chase Smith contributed to this report.
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