This article originally appeared on m o d e r n i t y and was republished with permission.
Guest post by @ModernityNews
President Trump declared Monday that he may invoke the Insurrection Act in order to restore law and order to American cities in the face of violent riots and attacks against law enforcement officers, including ICE.
During a press availability in the Oval Office, Trump addressed ongoing legal and political challenges to his administration’s deployments of National Guard troops to major U.S. cities, including Chicago and Portland, Oregon.
Trump was asked directly about invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807—a rarely used federal law that empowers the president to deploy U.S. military forces domestically to suppress insurrections, rebellions, or domestic violence when local authorities are unable or unwilling to maintain order.
The Act bypasses typical restrictions on military use for civilian policing and has been invoked only about 30 times in U.S. history, most recently during the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
Trump stated “Well, I’ll do it if it was necessary… We have an Insurrection Act for a reason. If I had to enact it, I’d do that if people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up. I want to make sure people aren’t killed.”
“You look at what’s happening with Portland over the years, it’s a burning hell hole. And then you have a judge that lost her way that tries to pretend that there’s no problem,” Trump added.
He emphasised that invocation “hasn’t been necessary” yet but remained “open” to it as a tool to override judicial blocks or local resistance, framing it as a protective measure rather than an aggressive one.
He also declared that most Americans in cities like Chicago and Portland are eager for troops to help keep them safe.
The President’s full remarks are below:
Leftists immediately labelled Trump’s remarks a “threat to install a dictatorship,” while Illinois Governor JB Pritzker labeled it “outrageous and un-American.”
Pritzker is suing the administration, calling the Chicago deployment “an unconstitutional invasion,” while a federal judge in Oregon blocked National Guard deployment to Portland the day prior, describing it as turning troops into a “national police force.”
Democrat Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson issued an executive order creating “ICE-free zones,” which the administration views as obstructing federal law enforcement.
The deployments are aimed at protecting federal property and addressing what the White House has described as “violent riots” and unrest tied to protests against federal immigration enforcement actions, such as mass deportations and ICE operations.
Federal judges had recently blocked some of these deployments, citing violations of laws like the Posse Comitatus Act, which limits military involvement in domestic law enforcement, prompting lawsuits from states like Illinois and Oregon.
Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt spoke at length Monday on the effort to make America safe again.
“It’s a shame that we see in some cities across the country that their mayors are just simply refusing to cooperate because they don’t like Donald Trump. And that’s what this boils down to,”Leavitt urged.
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She continued, “And I don’t think any American would disagree that Chicago needs more law enforcement reinforcements, that they need more resources.”
“Look at this headline from over the weekend: at least 30 people shot during the weekend in Democrat-run Chicago. Five of them were killed in one weekend. This is completely unacceptable. And the President wants to make American cities safer, and he’s willing to work with anyone to do it,” she further asserted.
Leavitt added, “The President wants to help these local leaders who have been completely ineffective in securing their own cities. And we have already seen there’s a positive formula for that. Look at Washington, D.C. — the murder rate has declined significantly.”
“Our streets are safer. People who live here feel safer. All of you in this room, I know you do — you just won’t admit it. And it’s a proven system that works. And the President wants to make American cities safe again. And I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that,” Levitt concluded.
Senior Trump aide Stephen Miller told the press that “If you can’t see that since we’ve taken office, there’s been an organised, systemetised campaign to delegitimatise, dehumanise, threaten, impede, obstruct, and physically assault ICE officers in their duties, then I can’t persuade you of it, because you’re choosing not to see what’s right in front of your face!”
Neither Levitt nor Miller were in the mood for any BS from the media, CNN in particular, regarding the matter.
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