'Memphis Was A Killing Field': Trump Touts Crime Reductions In Cities After Guard Deployments

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]As commander in chief, I will always support our great service members and their families. We've invested a record-setting trillion and now it's up to 1.5 trillion dollars and all built in the USA, by the way. All right, so it's a lot of jobs, too, you know. Some people said I did it for that. Actually, I didn't. I did it for the military, but it's a byproduct. We have tremendous numbers of very talented people building all of the things that we do and we make the best equipment anywhere in the world They're all ordering it for us. In fact, they've I've given a special edict that the defense companies who have the best equipment that are making it fast enough and now they're all building plants all over the place. I said, "You're not allowed to buy back stock anymore." I told some of these people that are making millions and millions of dollars, "You got to reduce your salary. I'm going to reduce your salary. You're going to put it into weapons."

[00:00:55]And it's been incredible, the spirit we have. And they're building some of them are building six, seven plants right now to make the Patriots and the Tomahawks.

[00:01:05]Tomahawks are unbelievable. Patriots unbelievable. We had uh recently we had 111 missiles shot at one of our very valuable objects, something called an aircraft carrier. Think of this, 111 missiles, high range, high quality speed missiles, very high, very fast, very top of the line. 111 out of 111 missiles shot at a, you know, what used to be you'd like to say a billion-dollar boat. Now they're about 18 billion dollars. They're very expensive. But 111 coming at them at 3,500 miles an hour, all 111 were shot down and didn't even get close to the ship. And they're all laying at the bottom of the ocean along with the Iranian navy. They're all laying very nicely under under the water. But think of that, 5 years ago thing like that would have been impossible.

[00:02:04]10 years ago, it's not even thinkable.

[00:02:06]Ronald Reagan actually thought of the concept. They called it Star Wars, but it wasn't a concept that anybody thought would ever work.

[00:02:15]But, you know, you have these things coming at you and we have the Patriots.

[00:02:20]The Patriots are the best of them.

[00:02:23]And we have other things also, but it's when you think you hit 100% of the missiles coming at us. It's not like, "Oh, let's let a couple get through. It's not that bad." One gets through, it's problems.

[00:02:35]So, we can do things today and no other country has anything like that. They don't have anything with the with the power, with the strength, and with the, you know, it's accuracy, really. It's accuracy. Got to hit It's like It's like hitting a needle in a haystack, they were saying.

[00:02:50]And yet they do it every time. It's pretty amazing. And we have the most talented people operating that equipment. For that, you have to be high IQ.

[00:02:59]And you have to have no choke because you have about 12 seconds to make a decision and take the aim. And you have to be very good mathematically. You have to know what you're doing. You have to be very smart. You have to see the education, the schools they go to. The best schools in the world. Some of them come out of I know I called up a couple. I said, "Where did you go to school?" I went to MIT. Oh, good. That's good. So, it's You know, we have a It's a very different, frankly, it's a very different military in many ways.

[00:03:28]But we have invested a record-setting amount of dollars and the US Armed Forces is now stronger than it's ever been and we're getting stronger and getting stronger. And it's so important.

[00:03:38]Every branch is setting records in recruitment. And I'm very proud of the Space Force because that was a branch that uh a new one that came up and we were losing to Russia and to China in space.

[00:03:52]And we had it as part of the Air Force, but it wasn't really thought of, you know, once it's part of something and we put a great general in charge and the Space Force is now leading the other countries, China, Russia, and there is no fourth really. And leading them by we saw numbers the other day, they're leading we're leading in space by so much it's we're never going to be caught. So I'm very proud of Space Force. First time that that's taken place is a new force.

[00:04:21]The last one was the Air Force and this is that was 78 years ago. So this is a brand new and we're very proud of it.

[00:04:28]It's turned out to be I think it's going to be one of our most important as time goes by. A lot of the things that you see a lot of the accuracy of the weapons is caused because of what we created with Space Force. So we're very proud of that. But every branch is setting records in recruitment. When uh last year, if you remember, before I came to office, actually after the election it started picking up rapidly, to be honest with you. November 5th, we had a little election, we did quite well. We won every swing state, we won the popular vote, we won everything. We won 87% of the counties.

[00:05:02]We won it all.

[00:05:04]What I will tell you right after that election, it started.

[00:05:09]But before that, we had the worst recruiting in the history of our country. People didn't want to be in the armed services. They also they didn't want to be police, they didn't want to be firemen, they didn't want to be anything with a uniform representing our country.

[00:05:21]And it was the lowest number we've ever had. And I can say very confidently that at this moment we have the highest recruitment, the most successful recruitment for the military, Army, Navy, the Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, uh Space Force, all of it.

[00:05:39]We have the highest recruitment, the best recruitment that we've ever had. We have lines of people wanting to get in.

[00:05:46]We're taking people based on their fitness and their quality. We're taking You wouldn't believe what the difference it is. Uh and Washington, D.C. is an example.

[00:05:57]And the That's why it's so sad when Melody comes up and talks about that one event because, you know, the numbers in Washington, D.C.

[00:06:06]uh are so incredible. The numbers have gone down from from We we had a place that was so so unsafe, our great capital, and now it's considered one of the safest cities anywhere in the United States. And we went to Memphis. And Memphis was was a killing field, practically. And now it's down The numbers are down crime 80% in New Orleans, Louisiana. The governor called up Jeff Landry. He said, "Sir, we have the Mardi Gras coming up, and we have a lot of crime in the city. Can you do something?" We put our people there, mostly National Guard, but whatever's necessary. And we have uh crime was down 79% after 2 and 1/2, 3 months. And by the way, if they had the brains in Chicago, they'd ask us to go there. We'll solve the problem for them very quickly. We'd go to San Francisco very quickly. San Francisco would be so easy for us. We'd go to New York and help them out. We'd love to help them out. And we'd get crime numbers down 70%, 80%, 90% in a matter of months. So, we took it in uh in D.C. was really bad. I don't want to go into the numbers in terms of using the word murder, but it was really bad.

[00:07:18]And it's gone from that to being We're down 92%.

[00:07:23]And actually, I'm trying to figure out, you know, the the 8% who they are. One of the things we done we did, and some people like it, but the numbers are The The numbers speak for themselves.