At the center of the sprawling legal battle over President Trump's domestic military deployments is a single word: rebellion. To justify sending the National Guard to Los Angeles and other cities over the outcry of local leaders, the Trump administration has cited an obscure and little-used law empowering presidents to federalize soldiers to "suppress" a rebellion, or the threat of one. But the statute does not define the word on which it turns. That's where Bryan A. Garner comes in.
There are few laws President Trump name-checks more frequently than the Insurrection Act. A 200-year-old constellation of statutes, the act grants emergency powers to thrust active-duty soldiers into civilian police duty, something otherwise barred by federal law. Trump and his team have threatened to invoke it almost daily for weeks - most recently on Monday, after a reporter pressed the president about his escalating efforts to dispatch federalized troops to Democrat-led cities.
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss the extremely consequential new Supreme Court term beginning this week, the facts on the ground and the legal questions at play behind Trump's escalating deployments of troops to US cities, and the likely legal defeat of state bans on conversion therapy. Here are some notes and references from this week's show: Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern for Amicus (Slate Podcast): This Will Be Trump's Best Term at the Supreme Court Yet (audio episode, 1:03:30)
Trump said Monday in the Oval Office he hasn't needed to use the Insurrection Act - "so far." But, he added, "we have an Insurrection Act for a reason." He continued, "If people were being killed, and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I'd do that."
U.S. President Donald Trump is considering invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy troops to Democratic-run cities if judges bar him from activating the National Guard, as he intends to do to provide security on the streets of Chicago and Portland, he said Monday, as tensions escalate over the deployment orders. Speaking from the Oval Office, Trump compared the situation in Portland, the largest city in the state of Oregon, to an insurrection. Portland is on fire. Portland's been on fire for years, he asserted.
Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to deploy more troops into Democrat-led cities. We have an insurrection act for a reason. If I had to enact it I would do that, Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, adding, if people were being killed and courts were holding us up or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure I would do that.
As the commanding officer leading the Marine detachment explained, 'They do not do any arrest, they are strictly there to detain, to wait for law enforcement to come and handle those demonstrators.'
