Calling the city a "death trap," President Trump on Tuesday again threatened to send in National Guard troops to Chicago as part of a federal crackdown on crime, as he has done in Washington. D.C., and is planning to do in Memphis.

Mr. Trump has gone back and forth in recent weeks on plans to send troops to Chicago, and repeatedly has said Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker should ask for help before he would send in the National Guard, but on Tuesday suggested he would deploy troops regardless of what Pritzker wants.

"I'm going to go to Chicago early, against Pritzker. Pritzker is nothing. If Pritzker was smart, he would say, 'Please come in,'" Trump said. "If they lose less than six or seven people a week with murder, they're doing a great job in their opinion. Chicago is a death trap, and I'm going to make it just like I did with D.C., just like I'll do with Memphis."

The president also repeated his claim that a man who he refused to name, but claimed runs Union Pacific Railroad, asked him to "save Chicago."

"I said, 'Where would you go next? He said 'St. Louis is in trouble. He said, 'But Chicago, it's a great city. You can save Chicago, sir. Don't let Chicago die,'" Mr. Trump said. "I'm going to Chicago next."

Gov. Pritzker responded to the president on Tuesday morning, saying, "you can't take anything that he says seriously."

"From one day to the next, he's attacking verbally. Sometimes he attacks sending his agents in. Sometimes he forgets – I think he might be suffering from some dementia – and the next day he'll wake up on the other side of the bed and stop talking about Chicago. So I've never really counted on anything that he said as real," Pritzker said. "When he said that he wasn't coming to Chicago, I didn't trust that. When he says he is coming to Chicago, it's hard to believe anything he says."

The governor also repeated his claim that the president is looking for any excuse to send in troops to Chicago, such as clashes between ICE agents and protesters should they turn violent amid the ongoing federal immigration enforcement operation in the Chicago area.

"I've been saying that since the very beginning that actually they send ICE in here to cause challenges and mayhem on the ground," Pritzker said. "You're seeing that when they go in as hard as they are, you can see that communities are reacting – as they should – with disdain, with great concern, protesting. But the harder the ICE agents come in, the more people want to intervene, and step in the way of them, and when that happens, and when there's any kind of touching or engaging with those ICE agents that involves actual potential battery, well that'll be the excuse, and it's wrong."

The president's threat to send troops to Chicago comes as the Trump administration has already launched an enhanced immigration enforcement effort dubbed "Operation Midway Blitz."

Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem was in Chicago Tuesday morning, according to sources familiar with the situation. She posted video to her official X account showing an ICE raid in northwest suburban Elgin.

Noem's post referenced the fatal shooting of an undocumented driver in Franklin Park Friday morning, an incident in which an ICE agent was also dragged by a car and injured, but the video she posted matches video posted on Facebook showing a raid at a home in Elgin. 

U.S. Rep. Lauren Underwood, who represents Illinois' 14th District, said ICE has reportedly arrested 250 people since they began "Operation Midway Blitz" on September 6. 

Pritzker has said the president is not really concerned about fighting crime or reforming immigration, but only about his own power.

"This is not about crime. More and more reports around these raids include people who were stopped or detained because of how they look, and not because of any threat to the public," Pritzker said earlier this month. "If any of this was about dealing with the complexities of a broken immigration system, then Trump would have had the Congress [that] Trump Republicans control write and pass a comprehensive immigration bill. Not only has that not happened, there is no talk of any such effort on the horizon."

Pritkzer repeatedly has said he would go to court to stop the president if he were to send troops to Chicago. Earlier this month, a federal judge in California ruled the president's deployment of troops in Los Angeles violated federal law.

In a 52-page ruling, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer found that the president and his administration violated the Posse Comitatus Act, a 1878 law that prohibits the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.

While Pritzker has said he opposes sending troops to Chicago, he has said he would welcome other federal support to help fight crime.

"I have been very clear about what we do want," Pritzker said. "What we do want is civilian law-enforcement assistance. We want to make sure that we have enough FBI, ATF, DEA on the ground. We have some already, as you know."