WASHINGTON (AP) — Since sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and Washington, President Donald Trump has openly mused about sending troops to some of the nation’s most Democratic cities — including Chicago and Baltimore — claiming they are needed to crack down on crime.

The threats to expand a federal intervention have legal experts and some military officials raising concerns that Trump is considering novel ways to use National Guard troops in American cities that could set up conflicts not seen since the civil rights era.

Though most violent crime has fallen in recent years in the cities Trump has called out, the Republican president said Democratic Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker “should be calling me, and he should be saying, ‘Can you send over the troops please?’ It’s out of control.”

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