President Donald Trump faces yet another contentious court case if he attempts to order the National Guard to combat crime in Pennsylvania, an unprecedented move that Gov. Josh Shapiro says is neither warranted nor wanted, and that pushes the boundaries of presidential power, according to legal scholars.

The president has touted his use of the National Guard to address violent crime in Washington, D.C., the sole place where the guard answers only to the president. Trump is also fighting an ongoing case over his deployment in June of the National Guard and U.S. Marines to control crowds and back up federal agents during immigration and drug raids in Los Angeles. He has suggested Chicago, Baltimore, New Orleans and other cities could be next.

State and federal officials told the Post-Gazette this past week that there hasn't been direct chatter about similar orders in Pittsburgh or Philadelphia. And Shapiro — the state's former top law enforcement officer as attorney general — is adamant that the guard is not needed nor trained for such duty in the Keystone State, where violent crime has gone down.

But Shapiro administration officials are still bracing for any potential order from Trump. Including Democratic- and advocate-led legal challenges to Trump's sweeping tariffs and policies on immigration, health, energy, the environment, transgenderism and diversity initiatives, the National Guard and the militarization of law enforcement are now front and center in the ongoing battle over executive authority.

"Anyone who tries to undermine Pennsylvanians' fundamental freedoms will have to go through me — whether that's a predatory corporation or the President of the United States," Shapiro posted on X Friday morning.

Earlier in the week, Shapiro told reporters that he understands "what communities need to do to make people safe as governor."

"We've invested millions of dollars in not only policing, but in community organizations that have helped bring down violent crime by 42%," he said. "Now is not a time to disrupt that with distrust the way the president is doing in other communities."

'Wildly successful' in D.C.

In June, Shapiro said that Trump had sparked "chaos" by deploying troops in California in the wake of demonstrations against the administration's immigration crackdown turning violent.

The White House did not respond directly to questions on whether Pittsburgh or Philadelphia had risen in recent National Guard discussions, or to questions about Shapiro's comments and the legal concerns at play.

White House spokeswoman Abigail Jackson told the Post-Gazette Thursday night that Trump's operation in the nation's capital had been "wildly successful," noting the president "is invested in the long-term success of these efforts."

"Just this week, (D.C. Mayor Muriel) Bowser signed an order to continue cooperating with the president's efforts to Make D.C. Safe Again," she added. "This sustained partnership between President Trump and D.C. will ensure violent crime continues to be addressed — other Democrats across the country should follow Mayor Bowser's lead."

On Friday, the administration not only doubled down — it singled out Shapiro, who is up for reelection next year and is often named among potential Democratic contenders for the White House in 2028.

"Another wannabe presidential candidate is desperate to get into the news cycle by attacking the president's highly successful operations to drive down violent crime — this won't fool the American people and Pennsylvanians who elected President Trump on his law and order platform," Jackson said.

She added that Shapiro should listen to Bowser, who had established a collaboration between city officials and federal agencies. But Bowser has also said "we don't need a presidential emergency," and she noted the emergency called by Trump in Washington was not extended by her order.

The city's elected attorney general, Brian Schwalb, sued the Trump administration over the issue this past week.

"No American city should have the U.S. military — particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement — policing its streets," Schwalb, a Democrat, said in a statement. "It's D.C. today, but could be any other city tomorrow."

Targeting blue states

The intensifying back-and-forth between the White House and Harrisburg plays into the dynamics some political scientists and legal experts say could be steering Trump's moves.

Christopher Borick, a political scientist and director of Muhlenberg College's Institute of Public Opinion, said Trump has shown a pattern of "talking about Philadelphia, not so much Pittsburgh, as a place where bad things happen."

"It wouldn't be beyond the president to consider that part of his broader frame with Chicago or Los Angeles," he said. He added that the president often dismisses statistics — such as indications violent crime is down nationwide — that "don't align with what he wants to do."

In targeting California and Illinois, Trump also put the spotlight on a pair of potential blue state presidential hopefuls in Gov. Gavin Newsom and Gov. JB Pritzker, Borick said.

"Add in Pennsylvania and that's another potential presidential aspirant," he said. "That shouldn't be lost in the conversation. Put a star next to Pennsylvania as possible places (where Trump deploys the National Guard)."

The White House in late August noted that Chicago's murder rate per capita "was three times higher than Los Angeles and nearly five times higher than New York City."

"The Trump Administration's message to Chicagoans and residents in Democrat-run cities nationwide is simple: you don't have to live like this," the White House said in a news release targeting Pritzker.

Elizabeth Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said during a press call Thursday that the National Guard was used illegally in Los Angeles and Washington, which would also be the case in "Chicago or other cities."

"At a minimum, it violates the principle and tradition that goes back to the founding of this nation against using the military for law enforcement purposes," she said. "That principle is absolutely vital to democracy and individual liberty."

While the president can federalize a state's National Guard for specific reasons, basic local law enforcement isn't one of them, she argued. There are even restraints on the Insurrection Act, in which a president can only deploy troops in instances where federal or state laws protecting people's civil rights are in jeopardy, she said.

Trump would also be out of bounds if he sought to send another state's National Guard forces to Pennsylvania, she said.

"Under the Constitution, states are sovereign entities (with regard to) one another," Goitein said. "That means one state cannot invade another, even at the president's request."

National Guard 'not the answer'

Bruce Ledewitz, professor of law emeritus at Duquesne University, said the founders did not expect to grapple with such questions.

"This whole thing is performance art," he said. "The National Guard is not the answer to whatever crime problems we have, and Washington and Chicago are not the most crime-ridden cities."

Still, Ledewitz said it's hard to see some courts — especially the conservative-supermajority U.S. Supreme Court — rebuffing Trump if he did seek to federalize the guard in Pennsylvania and other states to "keep order" during a claimed emergency in domestic crime.

While such a claim is different from the administration's use of troops in Los Angeles, where the goal was to protect federal property and the ability of immigration authorities to conduct raids, it's not entirely clear what the president's limits are, Ledewitz said.

"We know when there are riots, the president may call out the National Guard even if a governor doesn't want it," he said.

Court fight in California

The Trump administration is appealing a judge's recent ruling that the deployment of 4,000 National Guard and 700 U.S. Marines in Los Angeles breached the Posse Comitatus Act, which broadly bars the military from civilian law enforcement.

U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer in San Francisco included in his ruling a slide from U.S. Army North, the branch's headquarters focused on military operations in the homeland, highlighting prohibited law enforcement functions, including security patrols, traffic control, crowd control and riot control.

Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Dave McCormick, an Army veteran, told a telephone town hall this past week that Trump's deployment of the guard in California and Washington served as "a role model for the kind of law and order we need to ensure in our cities."

He noted that the administration "obviously must adhere" to "very specific restrictions on the role that the United States military can play in domestic affairs."

"But I think the way the president's deployed National Guard troops in Washington has been a great success," he said. "It shouldn't be the case that people in Chicago ... had a murder of nine people over the weekend, so I do think the president's onto something."

Stacy Garrity, Pennsylvania's treasurer and the Republican front-runner to face Shapiro for governor in 2026, told WESA in a statement that, "President Trump has shown that making America safe and cracking down on crime is a top priority."

"Pennsylvania families are facing growing chaos and uncertainty in our streets," she added, arguing a GOP governor could "restore safety."

Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner told CNN this past week that "Trump always chickens out," urging states to follow Pritzker's strong stance against ordering troops to fight crime in Chicago.

Krasner, who is up for reelection, told reporters last month he "never thought that military invasion of America's big cities with a fear-based racist agenda to pave a path for a military takeover is something that I would face, and I deeply wish I didn't face it."

Maj. Travis Meuller, public affairs officer for the Pennsylvania National Guard, told the Post-Gazette the state's guard has "not received any official requests to contribute forces to D.C. or other areas since President Trump took office, other than support provided at the request of the D.C. Army National Guard for the Army's 250th birthday celebration."

"As for future requests, we cannot speculate on future events," he added.

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