Sen. Tammy Duckworth says Trump "essentially just declared war" on Chicago, but there's no "indications" of deployment
Source: CBS News
September 7, 2025 / 11:51 AM EDT
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat, said Sunday that President Trump "essentially just declared war on a major city in his own nation" referring to his recent remarks about Chicago. But she outlined that "we don't have any indications" that the administration is getting ready to send troops into the nation's third-largest city, despite signals in recent weeks that he is preparing to do so. "This is not normal," Duckworth said of Mr. Trump's statements on "Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan." "This is not acceptable behavior."
In a Truth Social post on Saturday, Mr. Trump shared a screenshot that read "Chicago about to find out why it's called the Department of WAR," alongside an AI-generated image that appeared to be inspired by the movie "Apocalypse Now." On Friday, Mr. Trump signed an executive order to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War, though a formal name change would have to go through Congress. He is expected to seek congressional approval.
The post marked the latest in a series of threats Mr. Trump has made to send troops to Chicago as part of a nationwide crackdown on illegal immigration and crime, following his decision to deploy the National Guard to Los Angeles in June. California Gov. Gavin Newsom challenged the legality of that deployment, and a judge ruled last week that it violated federal law, although the ruling appeared to only apply to California.
Despite Mr. Trump's rhetoric, Vice President JD Vance said in recent days that the administration has "no immediate plans" to send National Guard forces to Chicago. The comments came one day after Mr. Trump again suggested he would send federal forces to Chicago, saying "we're going in."
Read more: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tammy-duckworth-chicago-trump-national-guard/
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Today the social media account of President Donald J. Trump posted an AI-generated image of Trump as if he were Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore from the 1979 film Apocalypse Now in front of the Chicago skyline with military helicopters and flames and the caption “Chipocalypse Now.” Kilgore loved the war in Vietnam in which he was engaged; his most famous line was “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.”
Over the image, Trump’s social media post read: “‘I love the smell of deportations in the morning…’ Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.” The words were followed by three helicopter emojis, symbols the right wing uses to represent former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s goons’ disappearing political opponents by pushing them out of helicopters.
Although it has become trite to speculate about what Republicans would say if a Democratic president engaged in the behavior Trump exhibits daily, this open attack of the president on an American city is a new level of unhinged. Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo wrote: “The president of the United States just declared war, actual military war, not a metaphorical one, on a major American city, and one governed by his political opponents.” He added, accurately: “In any other period, this would be impeachment-worthy.”
