President Donald Trump threatened to send troops to Baltimore, escalating his battle with Maryland Governor Wes Moore on how best to fight crime in the city.
The threat was posted on social media Sunday after Moore, a Democrat, extended an invitation to the president to accompany him for a “safety walk” through Baltimore’s neighborhoods.
“If Wes Moore requires assistance, such as Gavin Newsom required in L.A., I will deploy the ‘troops,’ which is already being done in close-by DC, and rapidly clean up the Crime,” Trump posted on Truth Social, where he misspelled the name of the California governor in his statement.
The comments are also a part of Trump’s larger effort to deploy National Guard troops into Democrat-controlled cities, a plan that has ignited political pushback and concerns about legality. Democrats oppose deploying troops for domestic law enforcement as it could breach constitutional boundaries and be an overreach by the federal government.
Governor Moore called the president’s words “tone deaf and ignorant,” stating Trump knows very little about Baltimore communities. “It’s because they have not walked our streets, they have not been in our communities, and they keep making these repeated tropes about us,” Moore informed reporters.
Trump’s comments were presented as a reply to Moore’s invitation, which the president called “nasty” and “provocative.” “As President, I would much rather that he clean up this Crime disaster before I go there for a ‘walk,’” Trump said.
The provocation comes as Trump has already sent around 2,000 troops to Washington, DC, a Democratic stronghold. While the White House says the operation has produced hundreds of arrests, local data paints a more complex picture. According to Metropolitan Police Department figures, violent crime in DC has been steadily falling, hitting its lowest levels in three decades in 2024 and continuing to decline in early 2025. Robbery is down 28% compared to the same point last year, while overall violent crime is down 26%.
Baltimore proper has also seen historic gains, with local leaders pointing out the city has had its lowest homicide rate in over 50 years. Critics accuse Trump of overlooking those trends to justify federal action.
Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and fellow Democratic leaders criticized Trump’s threats to send more troops to Chicago and New York, warning the actions are an abuse of power. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries also chimed in, stating Trump does not have legal authority to supersede state control of law enforcement.
At the same time, a Washington Post/Schar School survey discovered resolute local opposition to federal action, with close to 80% of Baltimoreans rejecting both National Guard deployments and federal overhauls of local law enforcement.
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