WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump escalated tensions over his deployment of federal forces into Democratic-led cities on Saturday, threatening to unleash his newly renamed “Department of War” on Chicago. The controversial statement came as his administration continued to face backlash for a similar operation in Washington, D.C., where he has deployed National Guard troops and federal agents.
In a post on his Truth Social account, Trump wrote, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The message was accompanied by an apparent AI-generated image of Trump and the quote, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” Both the quote and the concept of the Department of War are direct references to the 1979 film “Apocalypse Now,” a move that critics have called an alarming fusion of pop culture and military threat.
The previous day, Trump had signed an executive order officially changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War, stating that the new name sends “a message of victory” to the world.
The threat against Chicago was met with swift and furious condemnation from Illinois’ Democratic Governor, JB Pritzker. “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 (formerly Twitter). He added, “Illinois won’t be intimidated by a wannabe dictator.”
Trump’s policy of deploying troops and federal agents to cities he claims are plagued by crime began in Los Angeles in June, followed by Washington, D.C. These actions have been met with legal challenges and large-scale protests, with critics arguing they represent an authoritarian show of force against his political opponents. On Saturday, a large protest march took place in downtown Washington, with residents demanding an end to the “occupation” of their city.
In addition to Chicago, Trump has also threatened to deploy similar surges of federal forces to other Democratic-led cities, including Baltimore and New Orleans.