ABC News Writes Trump's Chicago Invasion Press Release For Him

Thirty-four paragraphs of violence porn, one mention of plummeting crime rates. This is how authoritarian moves get normalized.

ABC News just handed Donald Trump exactly what he wanted: a crime panic narrative that makes his threat to send federal troops to Chicago seem reasonable, even necessary.

On Tuesday, ABC published a piece by Bill Hutchinson that opened with “At least 58 people have been shot, eight fatally, across Chicago over Labor Day weekend.” The article then spent the next 34 paragraphs detailing every shooting, every victim, every crime scene. Only after this avalanche of violence porn did ABC get around to mentioning a rather important fact: Chicago's violent crime has actually dropped to historic lows this year. Shootings are down 37%. Homicides have fallen by 32%.

But hey, why lead with facts when you can lead with fear?

---

---

This is dangerous journalism. When mainstream outlets like ABC frame Trump's unconstitutional threats through his preferred lens of urban chaos, they're not reporting on authoritarianism. They're enabling it.

Trump claimed Chicago is “the worst most dangerous city in the World, by far.” This is laughably false. Chicago doesn't even crack the top 10 most dangerous U.S. cities per capita. Memphis, Detroit, Baltimore, St. Louis all have significantly higher violent crime rates. But you wouldn't know that from ABC’s coverage, which treats Trump’s lie as if it might have merit, as if there's some legitimate debate about whether Chicago needs military intervention.

And about that military intervention? It’s illegal. The Posse Comitatus Act explicitly prohibits using federal troops for domestic law enforcement. This isn't Governor Pritzker's opinion or Mayor Johnson's political position. It's federal law. In fact, just hours before ABC published this piece, a federal judge ruled that Trump's similar deployment of troops to Los Angeles violated this exact law. But ABC frames the constitutional issues as a he-said-she-said political dispute rather than what it actually is: a president threatening to break federal law.

What ABC got wrong

The problems with ABC's coverage start with the headline and get worse from there. Rather than leading with “Trump threatens illegal military deployment to Chicago” or even “Governor rejects unconstitutional federal intervention," they went with the shooting statistics. As if 58 people being shot somehow makes violating federal law okay.

This is classic manufacturing of consent. By structuring the article to overwhelm readers with violence before providing any context, ABC creates the impression that Something Must Be Done. And conveniently, Trump is offering to Do Something. Never mind that his “something” is illegal, unconstitutional, and exactly the kind of authoritarian power grab that journalists should be sounding alarms about.

Look at how they handled Trump's obvious lie about Chicago being “the worst most dangerous city in the World.” Any reporter with access to Google could fact-check this in thirty seconds. Memphis has a violent crime rate nearly three times higher than Chicago's. St. Louis, Detroit, Baltimore? All significantly more dangerous per capita. But ABC just... lets it stand. They quote Trump's lie, then immediately pivot to more shooting details, as if the claim deserves serious consideration.

Even worse is how they treat the legal issues. When Pritzker calls Trump's plan “illegal” and “unconstitutional,” ABC presents this as just one politician's opinion. But the Posse Comitatus Act isn't controversial or ambiguous. It explicitly forbids what Trump is threatening to do. Federal judges are literally ruling against similar Trump deployments as we speak. Yet ABC frames this as a political disagreement rather than a president announcing his intention to break federal law.

The piece reads like they started with Trump's narrative and worked backwards. Crime is out of control! The Democratic governor won't act! Federal intervention might be necessary! Only after establishing this framework do they mention, almost as an afterthought, that violence in Chicago has plummeted this year. By then, the damage is done. The reader already has their mental image of Chicago as a war zone requiring military occupation.

This is how authoritarian moves get normalized. Not through state propaganda, but through “objective” news outlets that treat illegal power grabs as reasonable responses to manufactured crises. ABC didn't need to endorse Trump's threat. They just needed to make it seem plausible. Mission accomplished.

So what’s actually happening in Chicago? The opposite of what Trump claims.

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson had literally just held a press conference about the city recording historic declines in violent crime. The Council on Criminal Justice reported that nationally, homicides fell 17% in the first half of 2025 across 30 cities. Chicago's improvements are outpacing the national trend.

Then there's the small matter of federal law. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled that Trump's deployment of troops to Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act. The judge didn't mince words, saying it created “a national police force with the president as its chief.” He ordered Trump to stop using troops for “arrests, apprehensions, searches, seizures, security patrols, traffic control, crowd control, riot control.”

This isn't theoretical. Courts are actively ruling that what Trump wants to do in Chicago is illegal. But you wouldn't know that from ABC's coverage, which treats the constitutional issues like some abstract political debate rather than settled law being actively enforced by federal judges.

The University of Chicago Crime Lab, the FBI, the Chicago Police Department's own data, federal judges ruling on this exact issue right now. All of these sources were available to ABC. They chose instead to write a story that reads like Trump's own press release, complete with cherry-picked crime anecdotes and zero meaningful context.

Why this matters

This matters because we’re watching democratic norms erode in real time.

When a president threatens to violate federal law by sending troops into an American city, that should be the story. Full stop. Not “is crime bad enough to justify it?” Not “local officials disagree about the approach.” The story should be: the President of the United States is threatening to break the law. That ABC couldn't bring itself to frame it this way tells you everything about how badly our media has failed us.

We know how this goes. Trump makes an outrageous, often illegal proposal. The media, desperate to appear “balanced,” treats it as one side of a legitimate debate. They find some statistics that seem to support his position (even if they have to bury the statistics that don't). They quote “both sides” as if lawbreaking is just another policy position. And suddenly, what should be unthinkable becomes part of normal political discourse.

This is how you get citizens shrugging when federal troops patrol American streets. This is how you get people thinking “well, crime IS bad” instead of “wait, that's literally illegal.” ABC didn't need to explicitly endorse Trump's plan. They just needed to make it seem reasonable enough that people won't be shocked when it happens.

The real tell is what ABC chose to emphasize versus what they buried. Thirty-plus paragraphs of shooting details create an emotional response: fear, anger, a desire for someone to DO SOMETHING. One paragraph noting that crime is actually down? That's data. And in the attention economy, emotion beats data every time. ABC's editors know this. They made a deliberate choice about how to structure this story, and that choice serves Trump's agenda perfectly.

What happens when Trump actually deploys troops to Chicago? Will ABC lead with “President violates federal law” or “Trump responds to Chicago violence”? Based on this coverage, I think we know the answer. And that should terrify anyone who cares about constitutional democracy.

This is journalistic malpractice. When someone threatens to break federal law, you report that they're threatening to break federal law. You don't write 2,000 words implying maybe they have a point.

Watch what happens next. When Trump actually sends troops to Chicago (and he will, because why wouldn't he when the media keeps giving him cover?), ABC will probably run another piece just like this one. “Federal Troops Arrive in Chicago Amid Ongoing Violence.” They'll quote some residents who are grateful. They'll note that some legal experts have concerns. They'll mention the crime statistics, somewhere around paragraph 25.

What they won't do is lead with the truth: “President Breaks Federal Law, Deploys Military Against American Citizens.”

Because that would require them to take a position on reality. And apparently, that's too much to ask.

The saddest part? The journalist who wrote this piece is probably a decent reporter who thinks he was being objective. That's the problem. The media's version of “objectivity” has become so warped that they can't even identify a constitutional crisis when it's staring them in the face. They're so afraid of being called biased that they'll help normalize authoritarian overreach rather than accurately describe it.

Chicago doesn't need federal troops. It needs continued investment in the community programs that have helped drive crime to historic lows. But that's not a sexy story. It doesn't generate clicks like “58 SHOT IN CHICAGO” does. And it definitely doesn't fit the narrative Trump is selling.

So here we are, watching major news outlets help manufacture consent for something that should be unthinkable. Not through lies, exactly, but through emphasis, framing, and a fundamental unwillingness to call illegal things illegal.

If this is how the media covers Trump's threats, imagine how they'll cover his actions. Actually, we don't have to imagine. We already know. And that should scare the hell out of all of us.