The nation’s debate over crime and public safety reportedly flared again this week when Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt reportedly issued an impassioned plea to President Donald J. Trump: send the National Guard to New York City.
The exchange unfolded on Saturday’s program after the hosts aired remarks from Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, who had condemned the Trump administration’s anti-crime initiative that deployed federal soldiers to Chicago.
Earhardt, joined by Brian Kilmeade and guest Charlie Hurt, questioned why city leaders would resist efforts that they argue have already delivered results.
“I just don’t understand why they wouldn’t want to clean up these cities,” Earhardt said. “I mean, D.C. needed to be cleaned up. It looks like it has been.”
Hurt, a political commentator, underscored the severity of Chicago’s situation. “Over 200 people were killed in past year and [Johnson] is beating his chest, saying, ‘Oh, isn’t this great?’” he said, pointing to what he described as misplaced pride amid crisis.
Earhardt then turned the conversation directly toward New York, where crime and quality-of-life concerns have become flashpoints in local politics. “Fine, you don’t want ’em? Send ’em to New York, please,” she urged. “Please, Donald Trump, send ’em here. Clean up these streets. I welcome it.”
The remarks come at a moment when Trump himself has been touting what he describes as a successful campaign against crime in Washington, D.C.
In a post to his Truth Social platform on Thursday, the president declared the district “SAFE AGAIN.” From the Oval Office the following day, Trump claimed that “African-American ladies, beautiful ladies” in Chicago have been personally asking him to replicate the D.C.-style crackdown in their own neighborhoods.
The Fox & Friends discussion highlighted the tension between city officials who view federal intervention as overreach, and commentators who argue that a failure to act has left residents vulnerable to what Hurt described as the “tyranny of lawlessness.”
“We can have all kinds of debates, constitutional debates, all kinds of debates about sending federal troops into cities like this,” Hurt acknowledged. “But, to worry about tyranny and not be concerned about the tyranny of lawlessness and the tyranny of crime that all of his residents live under” struck him as misguided.
Earhardt added further context, citing a surge of arrests in the nation’s capital. “Ninety-three arrests on Saturday, and out of those, 46 were illegal aliens and that’s in D.C.,” she noted, framing the problem not only as one of crime but also of immigration enforcement.
Her conclusion was clear: if leaders in Chicago wish to reject Trump’s anti-crime measures, New York should welcome them. “Please, Donald Trump, send ’em here,” she repeated.
The comments reflect growing frustration among conservatives with what they see as urban leaders’ unwillingness to confront crime, even as violence, arrests, and immigration challenges dominate headlines.
For Earhardt, the matter is personal: “Clean up these streets,” she said, throwing the weight of a national platform behind her call for a federal crackdown in America’s largest city.
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