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Donald Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 to deploy troops to American cities, intensifying a stand-off with Democratic-led states resisting his use of the military on US soil.
The president sounded the warning as his efforts to send federal troops to quash protests in several cities have had mixed results in the courts, with one blocking the deployment of the military to Oregon and another allowing it in Illinois.
“We have an Insurrection Act for a reason,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday, citing a law enacted in the early 19th century to crush rebellions.
“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.”
Trump’s threat suggests that he intends to press ahead with his plans to use the military to stamp out protests domestically even in the face of setbacks in court.
After deploying troops to the streets of Los Angeles in June, Trump has moved to expand the use of the military in American cities, saying it is necessary to root out crime and protect federal facilities and personnel from protests against his immigration crackdown.
In recent days, the president has moved to send troops to Portland, Oregon, and Chicago against the will of state and local officials who say it is both unnecessary and unconstitutional.
“There is no insurrection here,” JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, told reporters on Monday. “Donald Trump is using our service members as political props and pawns in his illegal attempt to militarise our nation’s cities.”
During his second term, Trump has defied the long-standing reluctance of US presidents to use the American military domestically. Some cities including Memphis, Tennessee, and Washington DC, the US capital, have welcomed or tolerated the presence of US troops.
The White House defended the deployments in a briefing with reporters on Monday.
“It’s a shame that we see in some cities across the country, that their mayors are just simply refusing to co-operate because they don’t like Donald Trump,” said press secretary Karoline Leavitt. “That’s what this boils down to.”
