'Chipocalypse Now': Trump zeroes in on Chicago as part of sanctuary city cleanup

The Trump administration is stepping up its federal presence in sanctuary cities, bringing in the National Guard to assist law enforcement in detaining and deporting criminal illegal immigrants, whether local Democratic officials like it or not.

For Chicago, the reckoning could come as early as this week.

President Trump posted an AI-generated image of himself Saturday as Robert Duvall’s surfing-mad character, Lt. Col. Kilgore from the 1979 Vietnam movie “Apocalypse Now,” against the backdrop of the Chicago skyline and helicopters over Lake Michigan.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning,” says the Truth Social post titled “Chipocalypse Now,” riffing off one of the film’s best-known lines, about Kilgore loving the smell of napalm.

“Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR,” he added.

Is the president bluffing?

Not according to border czar Tom Homan, who said Sunday that the Trump administration plans to take action soon in “most sanctuary cities,” including Chicago.

“Should we expect action in Chicago this week?” CNN “State of the Union” host Jake Tapper said, to which Mr. Homan replied, “Absolutely.”

“You can expect action in most sanctuary cities across the country,” Mr. Homan continued. “President Trump has prioritized sanctuary cities because sanctuary cities knowingly release illegal-alien public safety threats to the streets every day. That’s where the problem is.”

Mr. Trump has been trumpeting the success of his National Guard strategy after deploying the troops temporarily to Los Angeles and the District of Columbia to assist local law enforcement with combating crime and illegal immigration.

All signs indicate that Chicago is next.

As many as 300 federal agents are using North Chicago’s Naval Station Great Lakes as a logistical hub for stepped-up operations, according to local news reports.

The “Chipocalypse” post prompted Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker to accuse Mr. Trump of “threatening to go to war with an American city. This is not a joke. This is not normal.”

Mr. Trump dismissed the Democratic governor’s narrative Sunday at a press confab before boarding Marine One at the White House, calling it “fake news.”

“We’re not going to war. We’re going to clean up our cities,” Mr. Trump told reporters. “We’re going to clean them up so they don’t kill five people every weekend. That’s not war. That’s common sense.”

— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) September 7, 2025

Mr. Homan accused the Democratic governor of taking the president’s comments out of context, saying the war is not against the city itself, but against criminal threats.

“We’re going to war with the criminal cartels,” he said. “We’re going to war with illegal aliens, public safety threats that rape children, that rape citizens, that committed armed robbery, that distribute narcotics and kill Americans. We’re at war with the criminal cartels, and Gov. Pritzker protects criminal illegal aliens and public safety threats every day in that state.”

Asked whether Mr. Pritzker was aware of the administration’s plans, Mr. Homan said that “Gov. Pritzker has been notified on Day One,” citing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s ongoing activity in Chicago since Mr. Trump took office in January.

“Again, we’re going to send additional resources to all sanctuary cities, but this isn’t new to him [Pritzker],” Mr. Homan said. “He knows we’ve been there. He’s failed to work with us.”

Mr. Pritzker said Thursday that if the National Guard does land in Illinois, the state would “immediately go to court.”

Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, responding to Mr. Trump’s post, said the president’s “threats are beneath the honor of our nation, but the reality is that he wants to occupy our city and break our Constitution.”

The mayor added on X, “We must defend our democracy from this authoritarianism by protecting each other and protecting Chicago from Donald Trump.”