Trump threatens sending "more than the National Guard" to combat city crime

• The president defended his deployment of U.S. troops on U.S. soil to a group of troops in Japan.
• The White House referred Axios to Trump's public remarks and did not answer questions.

The latest: "People don't care if we send in our military, if we send in our National Guard, if we send in Space Command," Trump told American troops aboard the USS George Washington in Japan. "They don't care who the hell it is. They just want to be safe."

• "We can't have cities that are troubled," he added. "And we're sending in our National Guard — and if we need more than the National Guard, we'll send more than the National Guard because we're going to have safe cities. We're not going to have people killed in our cities. And whether people like that or not, that's what we're doing."

Flashback: Trump in August threatened to deploy the "regular military" to combat crime, saying Chicago and New York City were his next targets.

Driving the news: Trump has deployed the National Guard into Chicago, Portland, Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C., to enforce his crackdowns on crime and undocumented immigration.

• Polling shows, however, that Americans oppose to the administration's domestic use of the military.
• Trump's National Guard deployments have drawn immediate court challenges.

Go deeper: Where Trump's National Guard court cases stand