September 14, 2025
At a news conference, Young noted his disagreement with both Trump and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, but he also indicated that his hands were tied.
On Sept. 12, Donald Trump indicated that he would be sending National Guard troops to Memphis, seemingly abandoning his previous plan to send troops to Chicago.
As The New York Times reports, unlike Illinois’ leaders, Tennessee’s state leaders appear to be amenable to Trump’s plan to send troops into Memphis. However, local leaders, such as Memphis Mayor Paul Young, are not thrilled about the prospect, despite Trump’s assertion to the contrary on Fox News.
At a news conference, Young noted his disagreement with both Trump and Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee, but he also indicated that his hands are tied and did not respond in quite the same manner as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson.
“I did not ask for the National Guard, and I don’t think it is the way to drive down crime,” Young said, noting that it was not a decision he had the authority to make. “However, that decision has been made.”
He continued, after noting the crime numbers were down, but still lending credence to the plans of Republican leaders in his state and a president who wants to send troops after citizens in Black-led cities.
“The crime is still too high, and there’s still too many victims,” Young added, “My ultimate goal is to make sure that we get a long-term partnership and commitment with the state, federal government, community partners that we are going to address the root causes of violent crime.”
Young, notably, declined to establish a consent decree with the Biden administration in December, an arrangement that the Trump administration has not seemed to want to pursue.
Like the mayor, Tennessee State Rep. Torrey Harris (D-Memphis) said that people in Memphis are scrambling to figure out details. “What is their goal, what is their why? We’re all out of the loop of right now.”
Raumesh Akbari, Tennessee Senate minority leader and a Memphis Democrat, said that situations like unrest after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. are the only ones for which the National Guard needs to be called into a city.
“Those are the extreme instances where the federal government sends in the National Guard, when you have folks deliberately disobeying federal law or you have a period of crisis,” she said. Right now, she noted, “a lot of people are scared.”
According to a source granted anonymity by the Memphis Commercial Appeal, Young, U.S. Sen. Bill Haggerty, and Gov. Lee had conversations over the past few months discussing sending law enforcement resources to Memphis, but none of those resources included the National Guard.
Furthermore, the source noted, in contrast to some of Lee’s statements, the initial announcement that the National Guard would be coming to Memphis caught all three men off guard, even though there had been some limited discussion of federal law enforcement resources being lent to Memphis.
According to Haggerty, “Over the past few months, I have worked with federal, state and local partners, including the Department of Justice and the FBI, to surge federal law enforcement resources in Memphis,” Hagerty said an emailed statement to the outlet. “While Operation Viper — an FBI-led mission in partnership with federal, state and local law enforcement — has proven to be a critical step forward in addressing crime in the city, more can be done. Given the success of our early efforts, I look forward to bringing more resources to bear to continue working long-term to ensure the citizens of Memphis are safe.”
However, the Rev. Keith Norman, an influential Memphis pastor, noted that it’s difficult for the citizens of Memphis to tell what’s really going on, remarking that it is so far “so speculative that nobody knows how to read the tea leaves.”
He continued, “From a political point of view, the efforts that I see currently underway seem to be yielding results. And these results are working. So, with the results that are working in place, I think any addition to them with the National Guard would be overkill and, especially without some interjurisdictional agreements and coordination, we might have chaos.”
He concluded, “It’s a message that our government, locally, is ineffective at getting the job done. That’s not a good message. And then, for young kids, it sends a message that says, ‘Hey, it’s okay to be out here standing around with guns on your shoulder in this space,’ when it’s not. We don’t want that open militarization and fascism or demonstration of guns in public spaces from anyone.”
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