Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) supported the Trump administration’s consideration of deploying more National Guard troops to major cities to address crime issues. However, he was hesitant to advocate for a similar federal law enforcement strategy in his own district.
When questioned on CNN’s “News Central” about the potential National Guard deployment in Shreveport, La., Johnson responded, “I don’t know, that’s not my call. It may be necessary; I don’t know. Let’s take one city at a time and see.”
“We have to address the crime problem in any city where it is, if it’s a problem like that,” he added.
This month, President Trump declared a public safety emergency, taking over Washington’s Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) and deploying National Guard troops in D.C. as part of a broad anti-crime campaign.
The administration praised the initiative’s success and suggested extending similar measures to other high-crime cities, particularly those governed by Democrats in predominantly blue states.
Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry (R) dispatched approximately 135 National Guard members to the capital to support Trump’s initiatives in the district.
Shreveport, the largest city in Johnson’s northwest Louisiana district since 2017, has a crime rate surpassing that of D.C. and the state average, as reported by FBI Uniform Crime Reporting statistics. According to CrimeRate, an independent evaluation of crime data, Shreveport’s violent crime rate is “higher compared to other cities of the same size.”
“FBI statistics, actually, [show] violent crime per 100,000 residents higher in Shreveport last year than Washington, D.C.,” CNN’s John Berman told Johnson on air Friday.
The lawmaker pushed back, insisting that “there’s a lot of good work that’s been done,” but the Speaker conceded that the city has struggled.
“We have a Democrat [district attorney] there who has not been prosecuting crime as some other more aggressive D.A.’s have around the country,” Johnson said. “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.”
The Caddo Parrish district attorney’s office, which covers the area, didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
