New York, New York - President Donald Trump on Friday announced he had picked Memphis as the next target of his unprecedented deployment of National Guard troops.

After weeks of increasingly strong hints that Chicago would be the latest Democratic-led city to be effectively taken over by the federal government, Trump instead pivoted to Memphis, which he called "deeply troubled."

"We're going to Memphis," Trump said on Fox & Friends, adding: "And the mayor is happy. He's a Democrat mayor. The mayor is happy, and the governor of Tennessee, the governor, is happy."

Mayor Paul Young had issued a statement Thursday that was broadly supportive of the rumored deployment.

JD Vance JD Vance tells ex-congressman Matt Gaetz he'd like to send troops into every US city

Politicians Gavin Newsom, AOC, and other top Democrats respond to killing of Charlie Kirk

"I am committed to working to ensure any efforts strengthen our community and build on our progress," he said, per WMC-TV.

Republican Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn applauded Trump's decision in a statement to Fox News and promised to continue working alongside the Trump administration to hold left-wing officials accountable for the consequences of soft-on-crime agendas."

The Memphis Police Department this week announced crime had dropped to a 25-year low.

Under the guise of fighting "out-of-control" crime, Trump previously deployed federal troops to Los Angeles – a move recently declared illegal by a federal court – and Washington DC, while threatening to repeat the move for Chicago, Baltimore, and Boston.