House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) said Friday that sending in the National Guard to his hometown of Shreveport could be necessary to address rising violent crime, though he cautioned that the issue should be handled “one city at a time.”
Speaking on CNN’s News Central, co-host John Berman pressed Johnson on whether he would support a Guard deployment in Shreveport, noting that FBI statistics show the city’s violent crime rate per 100,000 residents was higher last year than Washington, D.C.
“There’s a lot of good work that’s been done. There [are] a lot of reasons for that,” Johnson said. “But we have a Democrat D.A. there who has not been prosecuting crime as some other, more aggressive D.A.s have around the country. Soros funded that individual to be elected. But I’ll say that it’s an urban area that has a lot of problems that are happening around the country, and we have to address it.”
When asked if the National Guard could help, Johnson replied: “I don’t know, that’s not my call. It may be necessary.”
Berman then pressed further, asking if Johnson would personally request such action. Johnson declined to commit, instead stressing the need to evaluate each city individually.
“Let’s take one city at a time and see. We have to address the crime problem in any city where it’s a problem like that,” he said. “And in large cities, like in Chicago, as you mentioned, that would be a big help there. I was there just two days ago, and it’s a serious, serious problem. They don’t even report murders on the evening news in Chicago anymore because it’s so common.”
Johnson tied the issue to Democratic leadership, arguing that “Democrat-run cities typically have that problem because they have not been tough on crime.” He added that President Donald Trump’s support for tough enforcement is “common sense” and a key step toward keeping American cities safe.
