R: What did you think last night when you said you were prepared to send more than the National Guard into American cities?
T: Sure I would, I would do that if it was necessary, you know, if it was necessary I'd do that. But it hasn't been necessary. We're doing a great job without that, but yeah, it was necessary. As you know, I'm allowed to do that.
R: Do you mean other branches of the military you would send in?
T: Who are you with?
R: The New York Times.
T: Very good, very good. Well, if you write it correctly, I'll give you the answer. But, you know, if I want to enact a certain act, I'm allowed to do it routinely. And other, about 50% of residents have used that, as you know. And I'd be allowed to do whatever I want.
But we haven't chosen to do that because we're very well, we're doing very well without it. But I'd be allowed to do that, you understand that? And the courts wouldn't get involved, nobody would get involved.
And I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force. Marines, I could send anybody I wanted.
But I haven't done that because we're doing so well without it. Washington, D.C. continues to be amazing, safe. And it's really great. As I said, Memphis, where we are now, is doing really well. It's down, I think, almost 70, 60, 70%. And within two, three weeks, it'll be down to almost no crime. Now, we're taking a lot of bad people out. We're incarcerating some very bad people. Some gangs, they have a lot of bad gangs there. And we're taking care of it. And we're doing things that, frankly, local law enforcement is going to have a hard time doing.
We were all set to go last Saturday into San Francisco. We look forward to that. We would have solved that problem in less than a month. But at the behest of a couple of really great people, very successful, great civic-minded people, they said, we'd love to try doing it ourselves. And that's okay. We worked with the mayor, and we're working with those people. But we didn't surge the city. And I said, if we surge, it's going to go a lot quicker, and it's much more effective. But I want to give them a chance to do it themselves if they can. If they can't do it themselves, we'll solve San Francisco in three weeks.