Why Trump’s troop deployments to US cities are such a big deal

In a nation founded on a revolt against tyranny, the notion of American troops being sent onto domestic streets has always evoked a specter of liberty in peril.

This is why most presidents resisted such a step and why President Donald Trump’s insatiable zeal for doing so may be so consequential.

His attempts to send National Guard reservists into Portland, Oregon, and Chicago, Illinois, against the wishes of city and state authorities, has the potential to finally create the constitutional crisis his critics have feared for eight months.

It is testing how far Trump can push his Make America Great Again philosophy and his strongman “I alone can fix it” mantra. Originally unveiled at his first GOP convention in 2016, it runs like a spine through his two presidencies.

The transfer of reserve troops from red states such as Texas to Democratic cities will also deepen the chasm and the hostility between conservative rural and liberal urban areas that is an increasingly potent dynamic in America’s divided politics.

Ultimately, a cascade of administration threats and power moves by the White House; fierce pushback from Democratic mayors; and a thicket of legal challenges will show how far the law and the Constitution can contain a president who epitomizes many of the anxieties of the founders about how a politicized executive with a lust for power could threaten their republic.

As so often with the great controversies of the Trump era, the facts are obscured in misinformation, false claims, cumbersome legal arguments and the ambitions of big political players on each side.

But the core issue is quite simple.

• In the latest round of its crime and immigration crackdown, the administration chose two Democratic cities, Chicago and Portland, to which it wants to send troops even though the legal and constitutional conditions that might permit the use of the military in law enforcement are far from met.

• In the latest developments, Trump on Monday formally authorized the deployment of at least 300 members of the Illinois National Guard to Chicago for 60 days.

• Hundreds more reservists are headed from Texas to Chicago after being placed under federal control. City and state authorities sued the administration to stop the deployment.

• A Trump-appointed judge, meanwhile, has temporarily blocked his bid to take control of reservists in Oregon or to ship reservists to Portland from California.

• Court action is frustrating the president. He warned Monday he’d invoke the rarely used Insurrection Act to bypass judges thwarting his ambitions if needed. “If I had to do that, I would do that,” he said from the Oval Office.

What’s behind Trump’s ‘war zone’ rhetoric?

Trump has claimed for months that Portland is “on fire” and that it, Chicago and other American cities are lawless danger zones on a par with Afghanistan.

Just because that’s hyperbole doesn’t mean there aren’t problems.

The record of Democratic mayors and governors is questionable in some cities that have been plagued by crime and homelessness. While crime data might be falling, not all citizens feel safe. Many would prefer more law enforcement. And the Biden administration’s failure to secure the southern border led many voters last year to feel the situation was out of control. The oversight was more surprising since it was obvious that Trump would run on a hardline message on his top issue in the 2024 election.

Rep. Pat Harrigan, a North Carolina Republican and former Green Beret, told Audie Cornish on “CNN This Morning” that claims Trump was overreaching were “overblown.” He said, “Authorities under which these troops are being deployed are limited to protecting ICE facilities and other federal facilities within these cities.”

But Trump’s summoning an inaccurate picture of cities that are “like a war zone.” Officials seem to compete with one another in conjuring new nightmares of urban dystopia based on conservative media doom loops.

Top White House adviser Stephen Miller on Monday used extremely evocative language when arguing that local law enforcement officials are failing to protect federal immigration agents and therefore need military help. He told CNN’s Boris Sanchez that “in Portland, ICE officers have been subjected to over 100 nights of terrorist assault, doxxing, murder threats, violent attack, and every other means imaginable to try to overturn the results of the last election through violence.”

Miller’s depiction of the city’s public order situation differed from that of local officials, who argued protests were sporadic around an ICE facility and restricted to a city block. Oregon Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley told CNN’s Jake Tapper that incidents of unrest usually occurred when federal forces confronted protesters. He warned that Trump wanted to “create the impression of chaos” to build a legal justification for extreme measures. Merkley urged protesters not to “take the bait.”

In Broadview, a Chicago suburb that has seen protests against ICE operations that have rounded up undocumented migrants and caught some US citizens in the net, Mayor Katrina Thompson limited protests to daylight hours. Federal officials reported several incidents in which vehicles belong to federal agents were rammed in Chicago. But Thompson accused federal agents of creating “chaos” by “needlessly deploying tear gas, pepper spray, mace and rubber bullets at individuals and reporters.”

Political leaders aren’t alone in debunking Trump’s claims of cities aflame. An Oregon federal judge appointed by the president called his alarmist declarations of an emergency in Portland “untethered to the facts.”

But why would the White House be exaggerating?

Trump’s critics believe that the president is building a case to militarize US cities in the most overt expression yet of his belief that he has ultimate power and that he is unconstrained by the law. The words of his subordinates only fuel those fears.

How might Trump use the Insurrection Act

Top administration officials believe that the president was elected because of his pledge to launch the biggest mass deportation campaign in US history. They argue any attempts to thwart that priority, by protesters or by state or local officials, represent an abrogation of the will of voters. They also take the questionable stance that Trump’s victory in an election hands him ultimate power that the courts or Congress are powerless to impede. In fact, an election win gives a president control of a single branch of government that is constitutionally checked and balanced by the other two branches and is still subject to the law.

But it’s a short leap from such sweeping interpretations of presidential authority to arguing that the most draconian measures are now needed.

This is where the Insurrection Act comes in. In most circumstances, a president is barred by law from using troops on domestic soil for law enforcement purposes. But the Insurrection Act, which has rarely been invoked, would allow the president to put aside those limitations to put down a rebellion against the government.

The act was used by President Dwight Eisenhower to implement civil rights laws. It was also invoked by President George H.W. Bush to put down riots in Los Angeles — but only after the request of the state’s governor.

No such circumstances apply currently

“We don’t have a rebellion here in Oregon, we don’t have an insurrection, we don’t have an invasion,” Oregon Attorney General Dan Rayfield, a Democrat, told CNN’s Erin Burnett. “We certainly don’t have a place where the president cannot execute the laws of the United States.”

Yet it’s clear Miller is building a rationale in which such insubordination against federal authority does exist. This, for now, seems more of a political than a legal rationale. But Miller told CNN’s Sanchez that protesters opposing ICE operations in Portland were “trying to overthrow the core law enforcement function of the federal government.”

Miller added, “This is the textbook definition of domestic terrorism, using the actual and imminent threat of violence to keep federal officials from doing their jobs … it’s absurd, it’s unconstitutional and must be put down.”

The administration has many potential motivations.

The deployment of troops alongside immigration officers might fast-track a mass deportation drive that has so far fallen short of the hopes of some MAGA voters. Imagery of khaki-clad soldiers on the streets might be sinister in a democracy, but would fulfill Trump’s cravings to be viewed as a strongman leader. An aura of toughness unconstrained by the law has long been a feature of the personality cult that he cultivated in business. Now he’s just operating on a broader canvas.

And there is an undeniable streak of extremism that goes beyond Miller. The Department of Homeland Security, for instance, has transformed its social media feeds into an extraordinary outpouring of hard right-wing propaganda. In a recruiting drive posted Monday on X, it claimed the arrest of “hundreds of criminal illegal aliens, terrorists, and terrorist sympathizers” in Portland and Chicago. It called upon job applicants to “block communists, terrorists, and globalists from ever entering our country.”

Politics is also always at play. In nearly five cumulative years in the White House, Trump has always played to his base, never paying much attention to governing for the entire nation. The creation of public order crises and hardline responses could keep GOP voters motivated a year ahead of midterm elections, which typically attract lower turnout than presidential races. In a CBS News poll at the weekend, support for deploying troops to more cities was concentrated among Republicans who felt such policies reduce crime and make them feel safer — even if they don’t live in those cities. But the tactics could backfire, since 58% of all Americans opposed Trump’s plans to involve the military in law enforcement.

Of course, Trump is not alone in playing to the political gallery. Governors like JB Pritzker of Illinois — a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate — are establishing themselves as resistance figures with Democratic voters despite for someone to right Trump. Largely unknown local officials are getting to play on a national stage.

But deepening political battles are a sideshow to a more profound constitutional issue.

Will Trump succeed in overturning a taboo on the use of the military in American streets in the ultimate vindication of his MAGA creed?

And if he does, where will that lead?

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