Trump TACO’d Out of Invading Chicago

Mmmmmmmm, breakfast TACOs. From CNN:

President Donald Trump shelved his plans to target Chicago as the next city for his domestic crime push after advisers warned him that sending in troops to help with local law enforcement without buy-in from the state’s governor could create legal headaches they want to avoid, sources familiar with the matter told CNN. Trump has privately argued he has the power to send the National Guard where he wants, he’s decided for now to set his sights on Memphis because the Democratic city, and more specifically the state’s Republican governor, is willing to accept federal help, the sources said.

Is it too late to make Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker the minority leader of the Senate and the House simultaneously? I know there are constitutional questions, but we all know that, as the Supreme Court has ruled, the Constitution is merely a list of suggestions, so we should take advantage of this strange new mutation of popular government. The administration can gussy it up all it wants, but the fact that someone in there felt comfortable leaking the details of surrender indicates that Pritzker has become the latest person to stand up and make the president eat his own bluster—simply by saying no.

The Memphis piece of this story is ominous on its edges, however. At the very least, Memphis actually does have a serious problem with violent crime. It was declared the country’s most violent city as recently as 2024. However, its crime rate has dropped substantially so far this year, something for which the president already has claimed credit. There well may be wheels within wheels here.

Memphis has a Democratic mayor. But Tennessee also has a Republican governor in lockstep with Republican legislature. Now, there long has been a theory among conservative thinkers that to overcome recalcitrant Democratic mayors—and, by extension, governors like Pritzker—that the state legislature should declare a state takeover of the cities. Russell Vought, the architect of Project 2025 and the current head of the Office of Management and Budget, whose portfolio extends far beyond crunching numbers, is particularly sweet on this strategy. From the Milwaukee Independent:

Vought laid out how his think tank is crafting the legal rationale for invoking the Insurrection Act, a law that gives the president broad power to use the military for domestic law enforcement. The Washington Post previously reported the issue was at the top of the Center for Renewing America’s priorities. "We want to be able to shut down the riots and not have the legal community or the defense community come in and say, ‘That’s an inappropriate use of what you’re trying to do,’” he said. Vought held up the summer 2020 unrest following George Floyd’s murder as an example of when Trump ought to have had the ability to deploy the armed forces but was stymied.

In theory, this already has been undertaken, piecemeal, for a while now. In 2011, the Republican majority in the Michigan state legislature, at the behest of Republican Governor Rick Snyder, took over the city of Benton Harbor, a transaction rife with suspicions of corruption. Last spring, Missouri took over the St. Louis Police Department. If the administration’s surrender on Chicago is a head-fake for a major move against Memphis, Mayor Paul Young best watch his back.