President Donald Trump established the “Memphis Safe Task Force,” which is modeled after the task force he established to clean up Washington, DC.
Flanked by Gov. Bill Lee (R-TN), Sen Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-TN), and top Cabinet officials, Trump signed a memorandum establishing the task force at Lee’s request.
“It’s very important because of the crime that’s going on, not only in Memphis, in many cities, and we’re going to take care of all of them step by step, just like we did in DC,” Trump said ahead of the signing.
“We have virtually no crime in DC right now, and we’re going to keep it that way,” he added. “It’s our nation’s capital, we’re going to keep it that way, or we’re going to federalize it if we had to, but we don’t have to anymore because it’s in such great shape.”
Trump highlighted Memphis’s status in 2024 as the American city with the highest violent crime rate, the third-highest murder rate, and the highest property crime rate.
“A person is four times more likely to be murdered in Memphis, Tennessee, today than in Mexico City… and you know, Mexico City is not a cake walk,” he said.
“It’s been overrun with carjackings, robberies, shootings, and killings. There were 249 murders, 429 rapes, 5.616 burglaries, and 12,522 violent assaults in just the last little while, in 2024 and in pieces of 2025, where it’s actually gotten worse until recently when we sent the FBI down to see what the hell is going on,” he added.
The memorandum shows that representatives from many different federal departments and agencies, ranging from the Department of the Treasury to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), will comprise the task force. The task force is encouraged to draw upon strategies and principles implemented in the D.C. crime crackdown as it addresses both violent crime and non-violent crime in Memphis, according to a White House fact sheet.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is directed to request the Tennessee National Guard units from Lee and, in coordination with governors of other states, to mobilize National Guard from other parts of the country that support the initiative.
