President Trump announced Friday that Memphis would be the next city to get a federal policing surge — and the second following Washington, DC — after a successful FBI task force collared more than 500 violent criminals earlier this year.
Tennessee’s second-largest metropolis, with a population of around 611,000 people, recorded 297 murders last year and has the nation’s highest violent crime rate among cities with at least 250,000 inhabitants.
According to FBI data, Memphis authorities tracked 2,501 violent crimes for every 100,000 residents in 2024.
“We’re going to Memphis. [It is] deeply troubled and the mayor is happy. The Democrat mayor [Paul Young] is happy. And the [Republican] Governor [Bill Lee] is happy,” Trump said on “Fox & Friends.”
“Deeply troubled — we’re going to fix that, just like we did Washington. I would have preferred going to Chicago.”
At a news conference later Friday, Young insisted that while his city was high on too many “bad lists,” “I did not ask for the National Guard and I don’t think it’s the way to drive down crime.”
The mayor added that any federal presence should examine the “root source of violent crime,” claiming a need for mental health services, jobs and housing help.
“I’m grateful for the President’s unwavering support and commitment to providing every resource necessary to serve Memphians,” Lee said in a statement. “Memphis remains on a path to greatness, and we are not going to let anything hold them back.”
Trump said the move was pitched to him by a friend who is a railroad executive and on the board of Memphis-based shipping giant FedEx.
“He said, ‘When I walk one block to my hotel, they won’t allow me to do it. They put me in an armored vehicle with bulletproof glass to take me one block.’ He said, ‘It’s so terrible.’”
Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.) told The Post Friday that the federal surge was the culmination of talks with Memphis business leaders — but also with Young, Lee, FBI Director Kash Patel and Attorney General Pam Bondi dating back to November 2024.
On July 21, the FBI launched Operation Viper to curb violent crime in Memphis with the help of agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration. Lee also deployed 150 state troopers to the city and made $200 million in funding available.
Highlights from President Trump’s Fox & Friends interview
The result was more than 500 arrests of violent suspects and more than 100 subsequent federal indictments as the operation wound to a close Friday, Hagerty noted.
“The city of Memphis had already been focused on this, yet under-resourced. By adding federal resources, including federal marshals that preceded Operation Viper, we’ve seen a downward trend, so we’re just continuing to push this,” the senator said in an interview Friday.
“In the next phase, as we add even more federal resources,” he added, “our goal is to have it be the safest city in America.”
Trump last month surged federal law enforcement and National Guard troops into Washington after high-profile instances of violent crime.
He has threatened for weeks to order a similar operation in Chicago, but has faced opposition from Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Mayor Brandon Johnson, both Democrats.
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents kicked off “Operation Midway Blitz” Monday targeting illegal immigrants with rap sheets in Chicago, but so far the federal surge is contained to border enforcement.
“So we’re going to Memphis. I’m just announcing that now, and we’ll straighten that out,” Trump said Friday.
“We’ll bring in the military, too, if we need it. But National Guard,” he went on. “Memphis is, look, it’s a great music city, it’s, you know, home of Elvis and everything else.”
Hagerty said “the president loves our state and he loves Memphis” but the decision to send FBI, DEA and other federal agents there was made after Trump became convinced that the crime problem was one that could be fixed.
“This is an opportunity for us to all come together again,” the senator said. “Putting politics aside, this is the most fundamental level of governmental responsibility to its citizens: public safety.”
