A Memphis Police Department officer and National Guard troops look on next to Alfred's before the start of the “Memphis Madness presents Ballin' on Beale's event on Oct. 16, 2025.

President Donald Trump threatened to send “more than the National Guard” to "troubled" U.S. cities, a potential escalation from deploying troops where mayors and governors have opposed them in disputes that have reached the Supreme Court.

“We’re sending in our National Guard and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard because we’re going to have safe cities,” Trump said Oct. 28 at a U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, Japan, during his weeklong Asia trip. “We’re not going to have people killed in our cities. Whether people like that or not, that’s what we’re doing."

Trump didn’t specify what the escalation would mean and which cities he is targeting.

Trump has deployed the national guard to cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Portland and Memphis to quell protests against stricter immigration enforcement. But mayors and governors from all but Memphis have opposed the deployments and challenged them in federal courts with mixed results.

If courts block the National Guard deployments, Trump has threatened repeatedly to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act, which would allow him to deploy active-duty troops to fight crime and battle protesters.

“I’d do it if it was necessary," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Oct. 6. "So far, it hasn't been necessary. But we have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I'd do that."

A federal judge in Chicago temporarily blocked the deployment there while the dispute is litigated and Trump has asked the Supreme Court to remove the restriction. The justices could issue a decision on that temporary block at any time.

The Justice Department relied heavily in its Supreme Court request on two written statements to justify its stated need for the National Guard to protect federal agents and property.

The statements by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency official Russell Hott and Border Patrol official Daniel Parra portray the situation on the ground as dire and dangerous.

But U.S. District Judge April Perry found the sources of the administration's facts to be unreliable, a determination an appeals court upheld.

"In addition to demonstrating a potential lack of candor" by Hott and Parra, Perry wrote in her decision, "it also calls into question their ability to accurately assess the facts."

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: 'More than the National Guard.' Trump warns of more troops in US cities

Reporting by Bart Jansen, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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