Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson rejected President Donald Trump's threat to send the National Guard to Chicago to combat violence and crime.

However, Pritzker went further and compared Trump's threats to the time when the Nazi Party in Germany “brought down a constitutional republic” in the 1930s.

The president called Chicago a disaster and described Pritzker and Johnson, both Democrats, as incompetent, at a news conference where he announced that the federal government will assume control of the police force in Washington, D.C.

Trump invoked Section 740 of the District of Columbia Home Rule Act in an executive order to declare a criminal emergency and deploy National Guard troops to the streets.

Our capital has been taken over by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals, roving mobs of unruly youth, drug addicts and people without home, and we're not going to let this happen again. We're not going to tolerate this,' Trump declared.

In his opinion, there are other cities that are also in bad shape.' Look how bad Chicago is... We're not going to lose our cities over this. This is going to go further; we're starting really strong in D.C.,' he added.

Pritzker immediately responded, referencing the Posse Comitatus law, stating that the federal government does not have the right to send troops into American cities for any reason.

"I'm not surprised that he's suggesting breaking the law; He has done it many times," he said about the behavior of Trump, who is considered a political enemy of Illinois, a "sanctuary" state that protects undocumented immigrants.

In the city of Chicago, the City Council declared the president "persona non grata" during his first presidency, for his attacks against immigrants and Mexicans in particular.

Mayor Johnson issued a statement today rejecting the intervention and saying that sending in the National Guard would only serve to destabilise our city and undermine our public safety efforts.

Johnson noted that since his first day in office, public safety has been his top priority, and in just two years we have made historic progress, reducing homicides by over 30% and shootings by nearly 40% in the last year alone.

He said he was recently informed that Trump cut another $158 million in funding for violence prevention programs in cities like Chicago. These cuts come on top of the Trump Administration's dismantling of the Office for Gun Violence Prevention and the cancellation of more than $800 million in grants for anti-violence programs across the country.

"If President Trump wants to help make Chicago a safer place, he can start by freeing up funding for anti-violence programs that have been instrumental in our work to reduce crime and violence," the mayor said.