The National Guard is typically brought into American cities during emergencies such as natural disasters and civil disturbances or to provide support during public health crises when local authorities require additional resources or manpower. There was no indication that was needed or wanted in Los Angeles this weekend, where local law enforcement had kept protests over federal immigration raids, for the most part, under control.
Guard members also almost always arrive at the request of state leaders, but in California, Gov. Gavin Newsom called the deployment of troops “purposefully inflammatory” and likely to escalate tensions. It had been more than 60 years since a president sent in the National Guard on his own volition.
Which made President Trump’s order on Saturday to do so both ahistoric and based on false pretenses and is already creating the very chaos it was purportedly designed to prevent.
Mr. Trump invoked a rarely used provision of the U.S. Code on Armed Services that allows for the federal deployment of the National Guard if “there is a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States.” No such rebellion is underway. As the governor’s spokesman and others have noted, Americans in cities routinely cause more property damage after their sports teams win or lose.
The last time this presidential authority was used over a governor’s objections was when John F. Kennedy overruled the governor of Alabama and sent troops to desegregate the University of Alabama in 1963. Supporters of states’ rights and segregation howled at the time and, in the usual corners, are still howling about it.
“To the extent that protests or acts of violence directly inhibit the execution of the laws, they constitute a form of rebellion against the authority of the government of the United States,” Mr. Trump wrote in an executive order, which is not a law but rather a memo to the executive branch. Yet the closest this nation has come to such a definition of rebellion was when Mr. Trump’s own supporters (whom he incited, then mostly pardoned) sacked the U.S. Capitol in 2021.
Past presidents, from both parties, have rarely deployed troops inside the United States because they worried about using the military domestically and because the legal foundations for doing so are unclear. Congress should turn its attention to such deliberations promptly. If presidents hesitate before using the military to assist in recovery after natural disasters but feel free to send in soldiers after a few cars are set on fire, the law is alarmingly vague.
Some legal experts note that Mr. Trump’s order goes even further. He “has also authorized deployment of troops anywhere in the country where protests against Immigration and Customs Enforcement are occurring or are likely to occur, even if they are entirely peaceful,” Liza Goitein, the senior director at the liberty and national security program at the Brennan Center for Justice, said in a social post. “That is unprecedented and a clear abuse of the law.”
There is, however, a long tradition of political protest making America stronger. And protesters will do nothing to further their cause if they resort to violence. But Mr. Trump’s order establishes neither law nor order. Rather it sends the message that the administration is interested in only overreaction and overreach. The scenes of tear gas in Los Angeles streets on Sunday underscored that point: that Mr. Trump’s idea of law and order is strong-handed, disproportionate intervention that adds chaos, anxiety and risk to already tense situations.
In 2020 it was Gen. Mark Milley, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Attorney General William Barr who stepped in and overruled Mr. Trump in his pursuit of using active-duty troops to bring a violent end to demonstrations in Lafayette Square, much to the president’s frustration. His current attorney general, Pam Bondi, and secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, have shown little reservation about potentially putting troops in a position where they might have to decide whether to follow an illegal or immoral order or unnecessarily endanger civilians. These are men and women who have sworn an oath to something more powerful than the current commander in chief: the Constitution. With little leadership, it appears they themselves will have to become students of the law and ethics that should guide their conduct. One can only hope they choose the right path.
The biggest challenge posed by Mr. Trump federalizing the National Guard is this: What’s the limiting principle? Could any president order federalized combat troops to enforce his or her whims? And ultimately, who and what is the U.S. military in service to — the American public or the president’s political agenda?
With this Trump White House, there’s a strong guarantee that the answer will not be sought in the rule of law, longstanding values or established norms. Instead, it will come down to — as it always does with this administration — whatever most serves the president’s interests and impulses.
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