By Idrees Ali, Phil Stewart and Nandita Bose

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he would deploy National Guard troops to fight crime in Chicago, an extraordinary effort to militarize the country’s third-largest city that was likely to trigger a legal battle with local officials.

“We’re going in. I didn’t say when, but we’re going in,” Trump told reporters at the White House.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson swiftly condemned the action.

“He just wants his own secret police force that will do publicity stunts whenever his poll numbers are sinking, whenever his jobs report shows a stagnating economy, whenever he needs another distraction from his failures,” he told reporters.

Hours earlier a federal judge blocked Trump’s administration from using the military to f

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