In a Fox News interview this past weekend, President Donald Trump claimed that invoking the Insurrection Act would allow him to have “unquestioned power,” and even suggested that it could be used to suspend court cases — despite nothing in the statute indicating as such.
Trump has sent National Guard troops to a number of U.S. cities, ostensibly to assist other federal agents carrying out immigration raids and operations. In two of those cities (Chicago and Portland), federal judges have blocked his use of troops, noting that the deployment of troops was likely unnecessary and provocative.
In the interview, Trump suggested he would next try to send troops to San Francisco, and that, were he blocked from doing so this time around, he would invoke the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that allows presidents to use the National Guard or military to enforce laws where it’s currently impossible to do so due to unlawful obstruction or rebellion.
“I can use the Insurrection Act,” Trump said, wrongly claiming that “50 percent of the presidents” have done so.
“And that’s unquestioned power,” Trump added.
Everybody agrees you’re allowed to use that and there are no more court cases, there is no more anything. We’re trying to do it in a nicer manner, but we can always use the Insurrection Act.
However, political observers and legal experts disagree with that interpretation of the law. Nothing in the Insurrection Act actually states that court cases can be suspended, for example.
“While it would be awful to see our military patrol the streets like police officers, there would still be courts and judges and good old fashioned laws, even under the Insurrection Act,” wrote Joan Walsh, national affairs correspondent for The Nation. “It’s not a scenario anyone who believes in democracy wants to come to pass, but even that won’t give Trump the absolute power he craves.”
Critics noted that Trump’s comments suggested he believed otherwise, and that he may try to invoke the law with the intention of using it as a springboard for additional power grabs beyond its purview.
“The Insurrection Act does nothing except you can then use soldiers as cops,” democracy journalist Andy Craig said. “They can enforce laws, but they’re the same old laws. It doesn’t suspend the Constitution. No martial law, no closing courts, no removing state officials, none of that.”
“Zero ambiguity here, folks. Trump is now threatening to use the ‘unquestioned power’ of the Insurrection Act under the phony (and unconstitutional) pretense of fighting crime in cities,” wrote Mother Jones journalist Mark Follman in a Bluesky post.
“If Trump invoked the Insurrection Act, as he has threatened to do, that would be a declaration of war against the American people,” opined Mark Jacob, former editor at The Chicago Tribune. “The insurrection is coming from the White House.”
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