Trump to send ‘surge’ of hundreds of federal agents to US cities

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot has warned US President Donald Trump against sending “secret federal agents” to the city, saying its residents need “public safety support, not games”. 

The mayor wrote to the president after news reports that the US Department of Homeland Security planned to deploy 150 federal agents to Chicago, the third-largest US city by population. Their mandate was unclear.

“The president has been on a campaign now, for some time, against Democratic mayors across the country,” Lightfoot said. “Whether it’s me, whether it’s Keisha Lance Bottoms in Atlanta, whether it’s Muriel Bowser in Washington, DC, whether it’s Jenny Durkan in Seattle. You see a common theme here? The president is trying to divert attention from his failed leadership on COVID-19. He has failed, he has failed, he has failed.”

Trump alluded last week to violent crime in Chicago and New York, blaming the cities’ Democratic mayors.

This clip was produced and edited by Al Jazeera NewsFeed’s Hassan Ghani.