President Donald Trump couldn’t wait to send the National Guard into Los Angeles. And D.C.. And Portland. And Chicago. All places where they weren’t invited and where many locals wanted none of his alleged “help.”
Yet when it comes to Louisiana, Trump has now waited well over a month to respond to his ally Gov. Jeff Landry’s request, announced on Fox News to Sean Hannity at the end of September, to send 1,000 federalized Louisiana National Guard troops into New Orleans, Baton Rouge and other cities to fight crime.
Sure, Trump hasn’t rejected Landry’s request to use federal money to deploy the troops that he has the power to activate on his own — albeit on the state’s dime.
And yes, he has mused at times about sending troops into New Orleans, despite dropping crime rates and a successful partnership between the city and state police for which Landry should be claiming credit, not playing into the fiction that things remain out of control.
But the president hasn’t shown a smidgeon of urgency on the matter. Not even when two horrific fatal carjackings soon after Landry’s ask, one of a chef picking up his child at a church day care and the other of a ride share driver, a grandfather who’d just dropped off some tourists in the French Quarter, might have opened some more minds to the effort.
Nobody official has publicly explained the delay, but I have a theory: I think we bore him.
Landry’s agenda is clearly to claim a sliver of the president’s thunder in using National Guard troops in this novel, confrontational way. But Trump isn’t returning the governor’s enthusiasm because it doesn’t fit his own agenda, which is to cause maximum viral conflict and to assert dominance
Columnist Stephanie Grace
Trump’s relationship with Landry is obviously quite different from the one he has with governors like California’s Gavin Newsom and Illinois’ JB Pritzker, who have cast Trump’s moves as unconstitutional invasions and abuses of presidential powers aimed at normalizing the sight of soldiers on American streets. Trump feeds on fights with guys like them, which he obviously wouldn’t get here.
Local officials, in New Orleans anyway, are a different story.
Incoming mayor Helena Moreno has said that sending the Guard into American cities is “about scare tactics and politicizing public safety,” and correctly noted that these troops are not trained or authorized to do police work. Yet her comments at a mayoral debate earlier in September suggest an additional dynamic at play.
“The National Guard can assist us when we have a major emergency like a hurricane, or even when we have a major event in town, to assist us with crowd control and things like that,” she said at WWL’s primary debate.
It’s true. People in New Orleans are used to seeing the National Guard around — including after the New Year’s morning terrorist attack in the French Quarter — not as an invading army but as welcome backup. And the request from Landry is for Guard members from the state, who are far less likely to be seen by their fellow Louisianans as outside occupiers than the Texans sent to Illinois against the governor’s will, or the Louisianans deployed in the nation’s capital.
Add to that the lack of a united front even in the Trump-friendly set. One prominent Republican, state Senate President Cameron Henry, recently told the Manship News Service that the Guard might be of use in Baton Rouge, where Mayor-President Sid Edwards appears open to the idea, but “my thought is not to have them come to New Orleans because we have State Police there and they are doing a good job.”
Even Hannity, upon airing Landry’s initial plea for troops, had trouble staying focused on what Landry was trying to sell as a crisis. During the interview, he quickly pivoted from crime to an offer of lessons he learned as a bartender for those who brave the French Quarter: “My advice: Never ever, don’t drink a hurricane … unless you want to throw up in the bushes,” he said.
Can’t disagree with that, but it’s not exactly a call to arms.
Still, Landry has said things appear to be on track for troops to arrive in New Orleans by Thanksgiving, which would be in time for the Bayou Classic, and stay throughout the holidays and special event season, when National Guard troops have been called in to help with crowd control before. If that happens, it could be that Trump will basically help Landry do what the state usually does, generally without any resistance at all.
Even if the prospect of pushback is all that keeps Trump remotely interested in this whole escapade.
