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

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Politics• 7 min read

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

Analysis by Stephen Collinson, 1 hr 25 min ago

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.”

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