The Chris Cuomo Project - Trump Is EXACTLY What the Insurrection Act Tried to STOP

Episode Date: October 9, 2025

President Trump has deployed National Guard troops to Washington D.C., Portland, and Chicago — a show of force that raises questions about presidential power and the limits of the law. Chris Cuomo examines how the Insurrection Act of 1807 and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 were designed to separate military authority from civilian law enforcement, and why those boundaries matter now. Cuomo explains how these laws evolved to prevent political misuse of the military, why modern presidents have avoided invoking them, and how Trump’s approach tests that restraint. He argues that using military power as a political tool risks normalizing force where policy and persuasion should prevail — a shift that could alter the balance between authority and democracy in the United States." Follow and subscribe to The Chris Cuomo Project on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube for new episodes every Tuesday and Thursday: https://linktr.ee/cuomoproject Join Chris Ad-Free On Substack: http://thechriscuomoproject.substack.com Support our sponsors: Save more than 50% on term life insurance. Go to http://selectquote.com/chrisc to get started. Go to https://www.drinkag1.com/CCP to get a FREE Frother with your first purchase of AGZ. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What if President Trump's sending the National Guard around the country isn't about fighting crime, but it is a crime and it is about stopping you from the ability to fight back against the government? I'm Chris Cuomo. Welcome to the Chris Cuomo project. Look, you got to do this analysis slowly. and without being reactionary to just they sup, they're Nazis, they're fascists, your lefties, your radicals, you're violent, that is all for the fringe and for the algorithms and to trick them and to get your clicks, doesn't form consensus, doesn't connect to where the majority opinion is in this country, and doesn't help us get to a better place. But there is an analysis here. Early on, I believed, oh, clever move by Trump, Presidents don't usually talk crime. Why? State issue. Not a lot of funding streams, not a lot of access. We don't have a lot of federal governance or presence in crime fighting in states, right? State trooper is usually as high as you're going to see. You know, it's the FBI guys driving around, okay? So they don't usually touch it. They talk about it, but they don't touch it. He touched it. He said, I'm going to fight crime all over this country. And I'm going to bring in the National Guard. Now, people who are

upset. Why? The law and the policy. Why? Well, the policy, show me where it says that intimidation as a stand-alone is what has brought down crime all over the country, because we have tons of examples of crime coming down and crime going up. We know why it happens. We know what works. It may be frustrating. It's not as politically saleable as the harshness of saying, you got to grab criminals, you've got to fuck them up, you've got to put them in jail forever, and you've got you have cops who are, you know, built like the rock. I don't think harshness is what gets it done as much as the blend of enforcement. Of course, of course, we saw what happens when you don't enforce at the southern border.

But enforcement and alternatives, avenues to opportunity, avenues to dignity, where crime doesn't have the same cachet, doesn't have the same draw, isn't the same desperation. Both work. See, how do we know? this. What happens to crime every time the economy goes up, goes down? Why? Alternatives, okay? Avenues of Opportunity. So, the National Guard as a policy didn't seem to make sense. Legally, it really didn't make sense. Why? Well, why do you think you have probably never seen the National Guard invoked by a president without a governor needing it because of a natural disaster or whatever was happening in the city. You've probably never seen it. The last one was in

1992. Bush. Why? Rodney King. Google that and made George Floyd look like, you know, a one school sit-in. It was days of blocks and blocks of different zip codes getting destroyed because of the outrage of policing and abusive force against a flawed, if highly charismatic, victim in the form of Rodney King. So the law here is worth some time. Okay. How do we know what the federal government, what a president can do when it comes to using the military domestically? Okay. There are two main statutes and a third precedent, a third common law precedent. What's a common law present? Something that we've seen in culture and cases, but isn't specifically laid out in a statute.

Ah, that's common law. Yes, that's what common law is. Good. So, what are the two statutes? The Insurrection Act of 1807 and the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878. Now, the first thing you need to know is the 1878 was passed. to bridle the 1807, okay? The 1878, posse comitatis means power of the county in Latin.

What does that mean? It's a municipal issue. Let them figure it out and form a posse of people who will enforce the law, right? You've seen a Western before, right? The federal government should not come in with the military. Now, got to back up. Why did we have the Insurrection Act in 1807? I will tell you.

But first, I will take a step sideways, which is the freedom I have in a podcast. If you think that Stephen Miller is using the word insurrection here and the insurrection act, by accident, you are a dope, it is by design to take back the word insurrection from January 6th. I ask people, remember January 6th, remember why you are one of the people who, believes it was not an insurrection. Now, early on, looked like an insurrection, looked like they were trying to stop Congress from doing their job. I called it an insurrection. Then prosecutors developed the case and all of the different cases, never prosecuted anyone for

insurrection. I changed my opinion. Why? Because according to the prosecutors in the cases they were willing to make on the facts they were willing to, uh, able to find and willing to present, It wasn't a rebellion. It wasn't an insurrection. It was a horrible riot, a string of crimes, disgusting, and one of the lowest forms of American behavior I've ever seen in my life. But not an insurrection. So I no longer call it an insurrection,

saying it's an ugly riot and that it was a terrible act of violence that seemed to be promoted, if not motivated, by the fringe. So keep that same energy. when you're looking at where the National Guard is being sent, because there's no way you can believe January 6th wasn't an insurrection, but what's happening in Portland or Chicago or anywhere there are protests against ICE is an insurrection.

No way. It would never pass legal muster in terms of what an insurrection is, which I'll get to in a second, because that's why we got the 1807 Act. But just in terms of logic and fairness, you can't. You can't color what's happening there the way what happened on January 6th. And I'm not saying two wrongs make a right. I'm saying that two instances are both examples of what it is not, which is an insurrection, an attempt to overthrow the government.

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Where is America? Foundering or floundering. You can use it either way. Floundering or foundering, why? Because with each new annexed territory, with each measure of expansion of this country, there was increasing resistance to federal law. Why?

Remember, federalism was a new thing, and it was all about the states doing their thing and doing as little together as was absolutely necessary to maintain the whole. Okay? It really was united, but it was really separate but equal, okay? Like the Plessy v. Ferguson standard of, you know, racist segregation.

You know, Virginia was Virginia first. Yeah, I'm part of the United States, but it's kind of like the EU, all right? Think of it that way, all right? Italy is Italy. It's also in the European Union, but Italy first. Same deal. So that started the muscle up, and a federal government was pretty weak. And, of course, this all reached ahead, right?

Some 50 years later with the Civil War. So, 1807, they passed this law, the Insurrection Act. What does it do? It allows the president to use the military to put down people who will not obey federal law, okay? But as like a region, you know what I'm saying? Like, if you come in here, we'll kill you, we'll call you when we need you. We'll pay what we're supposed to pay, but not too much. And we'll decide what it is.

Not you. Thank you very much. It was those kinds of situations that birthed the Insurrection Act in 1807. And what did it tell us? Okay. So there's a foreign entity coming in, an invasion. You can use the military. Okay, that's the duh.

You didn't need me for that. To enforce the law, when have we seen it used? Eisenhower and Kennedy. When did they use it? Desegregation. When the states, Wallace, whoever it was said, now, we're not doing it. In comes a National Guard. In comes a military.

Now you'll do it. Twice it's been used for that reason. Now, let's start with the obvious. Nobody has ever used it as president the way Trump is trying to use it now. Full stop. Okay? Many have dealt with exactly what he's dealing with right now

and have not handled it this way. Okay? Why? That's the daunting question. If, what the answer could be? One of two things. Okay? Well, answer could be 100 things.

But here's one of two main things that are worth processing. One, Trump has a very obvious way of expressing power and seeing it as a messaging device and the military is the top of that food chain and sending in the military looks strong

looks like the projection of power looks like might makes right sending in the military that's strong man and let's be honest it worked early on the polling even the media coverage even though I was saying look I do not like

sending in the National Guard I don't think you need to do that. But boxing in the Democrats to look like they were resistance to federal assistance with crime as if they didn't have a problem with crime was not doing well in each of the states that pushed back. People were like, but we do have a problem. Why wouldn't you take federal help? Is this about your politics over what I need to keep me and my family safe, my business safe, my community safe? You don't think we have a crime problem?

It was a bad look for Democrats. They weren't articulating it sharply enough. that it's about the how, not the why. We want the help. We want federal resources, but send me the DEA, send me the FBI, send me the vice squad, send me those guys to help me with whatever my specific set of concerns are here. I don't need the National Guard. They're not even trained in policing. So we have never seen it this way. And the question is, if he's doing it that way because he just sees it as a gross projection of power, okay, you argue it as a political point. But if he is doing it, if the president of the United States, if President Trump is using the military to show he can and moving the line of what is acceptable, then he is doing something that does justify the authoritarianism complaints.

Now, I don't play with he's a Nazi, he's a fascist. I just focus on what he does in assessing the policies. But if you don't want people calling you a fascist, don't do things like this, okay? The best legal argument in his favor is that ultimately the courts will decide that the president has the right to be wrong, that he can say, yeah, I think I had to call it in. I'm unable to preserve federal assets. I'm unable, this is the third and fourth measure of the Insurrection Act, an invasion, okay, to protect. people's rights and the execution of them, an inability to execute the laws, meaning someone's stopping you from it, or my ability to protect federal assets. So those are the two he's looking at.

And that the courts will eventually find, says no less than Alan Dershowitz, one of the best constitutional professors in our country when it comes to the law. The president has the right to be wrong, meaning if he thinks there's an inability to execute the law, if he thinks there's a an inability to adequately protect federal resources and assets, then he wins and he can pull it in, even if he's wrong, even if the facts color it a different way. Why? Because there was such tremendous deference given to a president assuming good faith. But what if there is bad faith? And I argue that right now, you look at Chicago, you look at L.A., you look at Portland, it is bad faith to say that there's no ability to control the situation

without the National Guard. I don't think that's true. So we've moved from fighting crime to lawlessness, which is different. This is about politics. This is about, you know, reality. Crime is reality, right? Nothing more real than crime. This is politics. This is projection of power. This is messaging. So if legally he winds up getting the benefit of deference from the courts that he has the right to be wrong as president, boy, did he just blur that line. And this is looking more and more like that. And this is something we don't want in this country. How do I know? Because of the history of the law. 1807, the Insurrection Act, it's very limited. Why were they doing it? There was domestic revolt. There was civil

disorder. They needed the tool. This is the tool. You do not have that right now. Oregon is not saying they're going to secede. Pritzker isn't saying, I'm pulling the state out of the country. Right? Nobody's saying that. So that's why it came in. So 1878, Posse Cometatus, power of the county, comes in to correct and limit the 1807 Act. How do we know? It's in a legislative history. But there are a carve-out in it that are convenient to the president. What are the carve-outs? So 1878 posse comitatis says this. You can't use the military without congressional approval as president, domestically, with a couple of exceptions. And one of them is the National Guard. The National Guard is not in the posse comitatis restrictions of use of military.

But how does it talk about National Guard when under the control of the governor? Why would they say that? Because what were they doing? They were protecting against the president's ability to abuse the power as commander and chief. They did not want to compromise a governor's ability to do what is best for his own state. That's why it's worded that way. So, a Stephen Miller says, oh, is there a carve-out imposti-comitatis for us to do this?

No. There is a carve-out impacometatus for a governor to use the National Guard within their own purview, in their own state. Not for you. That's not true. Now, that is the legal framework here, okay? Also, there's a provision within posse comitatis that you can use the military, to advise for logistics, think Army Corps of Engineers, without triggering the restriction against the use of them domestically.

And it's worked just fine until right now. Support comes from select quote. Look, this is an easy sell for me. This is just an easy sell. Why? Because if you've got to take care of other people, you've got to think about insurance, all right? we all know the variables in life i don't have to tell you about what can happen and all the different

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Get the right life insurance for you, for less, and save more than 50% at SelectQuote.com slash chris c save more than 50% on term life insurance at select quote dot com slash chris c today that's how you get started select quote dot com slash chris c i think that it is time for the question to be asked i'm not hysterical about it i'm not saying this is about the destruction of the country i'm not saying that but erosion matters, okay? A little bit, by a little bit, by a little bit, by a little bit, by a little bit, eventually becomes what? A lot of it, right? You ever hear that old expression about budgeting? Million here, a million there. Eventually, you're talking about real money. Same kind of thing, right? This is okay. This is okay. I guess he can do this. I guess he can do that, that, da, da, da, da, and now here we are.

It turns out we don't need another election. Now, do I see that coming? No. Do I see this 2028, Trump runs again? No, I do not see it. Why? I don't know how you get past the 12th and 22nd amendments to the Constitution. And the answer to that is, you dummy, you get around it by ignoring them and having a Supreme Court that lets you get away with it. I don't believe that will happen. What? Are you looking at what this court is doing? This court is doing what conservative courts have done. Maybe a little bit more. Is there a little extra? Maybe it's a little extra. maybe, but it is not outside the scope of partisan influence on the Supreme Court. Remember, where you're coming from here at the Chris Cuomo Project, I believe the Supreme

Court has always been vetted in bad faith. Ever since Bork, you've got to go back and look, B-O-R-K, ever since he told the truth about why he decides the way he does in terms of how it's informed by his personal and political disposition, and he got punished for it. They have this new rule that either side, whenever they put somebody up, if you ask them about their politics, they say, I can't talk about my politics. It's about stare decisis. And it's all about existing case law. And I'd have to see the case. They're full of shit. Starry decisis means the thing is decided subject to what? The next time they decide. And yes, there's supposed to be deference to cases that have been tested and have held, right?

that's what stare decisis is really about, but they don't give a shit about that. They went right after Roe v. Wade had been tested a bunch of times. Now, in fairness, every time Roe v. Wade was tested, what happened to it? It got eroded a little bit. So was it the perfect case? No, it wasn't. But the point is, if the court wants to, it does. Okay?

Now you got it at 6.3. So when it does, it does. Now, that's what we're playing with here. Is Trump is going to keep using the military. on every municipality that does anything that he doesn't like. I understand the fear. Is it a reasonable fear? It is a more reasonable fear now than it was a month ago.

I think that's fair. I think the president has pushed this with saying he needs to do it to help ICE do their job. Now, the problem he has is, again, and I've had home and on, and I'm fair about this, and I'm clear-eyed about it. It doesn't look like what was originally promised, which is the bad ombray's, okay? They're now saying 70% of those arrested have criminal backgrounds. Unless you're talking about their illegal entry, I think that's a bullshit number, okay? If you count the entry as the crime part, then yeah, of course, 100% of them. 100% of people who aren't here illegally probably have that as a crime, as a default.

Why? Because it's a crime to be here illegally. So that doesn't work for me. You said you were going to round up the bad ombres, not just people who are here illegally or just because they are in the vicinity of the people that you wind up picking up because they're bad hombres. I don't, I think you need due process. So you start getting rid of the due process. You erode the due process. You keep bringing up Obama on how he got rid of more. He did it with due process. He did it over the course of years, not months. That's how they got rid of three million people or whatever the number is. Not this way. We've never seen anything like this. And I feel badly for the men and women of ICE because they're just doing what they're told to do. And no, they're not the Gestapo. But they are hyper-enforcing. They are. The masks, it's not a thing for me. They're getting doxed too much for me to feel like they're trying to be sinister. There's too much shit happened in their families. For me, me to put the masks on them the way Newsom did. He's just playing politics, and it works. It looks like a muscular response to something that is offensive. But I also find offensive what's

being done to the officers. So that's a mixed bag. But the overreach is clear. And going in and hog tying kids with zip ties and grabbing people and all these different anecdotes that are building up is not what was promised. Support comes from AG1. I got to tell you, my morning routine is set, all right? I do my one and done. My scoop of AG1 and my warm water. Very nice.

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Every time you fill up at pay one. Petro Canada. That's 3 cents per leader in instant savings plus 20% more points when you link an eligible RBC card to your Petro point. Find out more at RBC.com slash Petro-dash Canada. Conditions apply. There's another idea in the law called an attractive nuisance. Have you ever heard of that? An attractive nuisance in its easiest example is a swimming pool. The reason you have to have a fence around a swimming pool is that if kids know you have a swimming pool and they can get to it, they're going to jump in. and maybe they'll get hurt. It's an attractive nuisance. You've got to protect it.

Okay. This country was made an attractive nuisance for people to enter illegally because it was so easy. And you have all of these businesses that are spending money to send people down to entice them to come and organizing them and traveling them illegally across the border. Or at a minimum, if they're not doing that, and many are. And you don't see them in the headlines. the way you do the brown menace. Why? Because that's scary. Greedy companies is not scary.

Huh? You didn't think of it that way. Let me tell you. That's the truth. Okay. Now, even if companies aren't doing that, you know what they make it really obvious to know? If you can get here, we'll hire you. Why not? Cheaper labor? Good labor. Don't have to give them the same rights or benefits. Now, does it tank the overall labor market? that sector? Yep. Is it bad for these people? Yep. Is it arguably bad for us because we're not really supporting people who come here in a way that they're going to be a fruitful member of our society? Yeah, I think it all sucks. It's just good for the corporations. And derivatively,

it's good for our pricing because it keeps pricing down. That's a tradeoff we made. But we made the country an attractive nuisance. You made it easy to get in. You didn't enforce it, catch and release. And then they all come that way and you want to blame them? Nah, never. it never worked for me. And I believe in securing the southern border. And then you don't have this problem. But you need the workers. You need the new blood. Look at the death rate to birth rate ratio. We'll put it up here right now. Very easy to find. We need new blood in this country. And I don't know why my conservative brothers and sisters see me as some kind of race traitor for saying that. One, thanks for including me. You know, my father was written off as an ethnic

and he was a swarthy Italian. But now I'm fully white. I'm vested. Great. My point is I'm not saying get rid of white people. Let in all the white people you want. If they want to come to this country and they pass the background check. I'm just saying we need people.

I don't give a fuck what kind of people they are. As long as they've got the head in the heart to want to make this country better and take advantage of it. Great. Come on in. As long as you're not here to fucking kill us. As long as you're not coming in here with some. some kind of perverse sense of religion where we represent some evil that you have to extinguish.

Come on in. You know, we think we have a tough here with immigration. Oh, my God, are we spoiled? Are you kidding me? We don't even have a real influx of Muslim expats here yet. This is one of two countries in the world where there are more Jews than Muslims. Now, it won't last long. More are coming, and that's not a judgment. I'm not anti-Muslim. I'm anti-extreme Islamists. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm against it on two different levels. I'm against it on a secular level because I think they are an oppressive religious culture, bad for women, bad the minorities. Their version of Sharia law is harsh and antithetical to American jurisprudence. Antithetical. okay and on a second level that is now we're catching them with domestic terror in my opinion it's

terror when someone kills his health care CEO because he doesn't like the system you know all these different murders and things that are going on in assassinations because people don't like somebody's politics to me that's terror and we haven't even had to worry about jihadis for a hot minute in fact we're electing people who say globalize the intifada right but when that happens you'll see why you wanted separation of church and state. When you've got 40, 50, 60, 70, 100, 150 million Muslims in this country, and all of a sudden they want to wonder, they start to ask, why can't it represent the majority more? Well, the majority is Muslim. Why can't we have all of the iconology and things that we want in our public spaces? I mean, come on, it reflects the majority. That's

why you don't fuck with the Constitution. Because just because it works for you right now does not mean it always will. And you preserve your ability to be what and how you want to be by not putting what you are and how you are on anybody else as a function of the state. Because someday it may be done to you. So stay consistent. And look at this for what it is. I don't think it's about fighting crime.

I don't think it's because ICE can't. function without National Guard there to protect them. Do I think the states have to comply? Yes. Fight it out in court. Do not make federal officers vulnerable to your community. Otherwise, you're asking for this. And that I don't like either. If you are going to create a hostile, conflictual situation that then gives the president the ability to send in the military, then you are asking for it. Respect the law. Test the law. Fight in court where you're supposed to. Not on Instagram and fucking Twitter. That's the right way to do it. This extension of the president's power around the country no longer looks like what it was sold as. And that is a

recurring theme with this administration. It's not, crime's really bad here. So I'm going to send in these people and let's see if it gets better. That's not what it is anymore. It is something more than that, which at the same time is also something less than that, meaning less worthy, less legitimate, less democratic, less legal. Okay? And I don't believe in this president's right to be wrong. I don't think this president is just another pro-former president. I think that his truth abuse and his ignoring of norms and legal standards is unusual, unusual. And I hope that courts appraise it that way. As if so, well, if he says, you know, that this is what it is, we got to give him the benefit of the doubt.

I don't know that. And that's why there's got to be robust litigation, because that's what this country is about. and the judiciary, the most boring branch, the most overlooked branch, has become the most important branch in our government. The executive is all about self-interest. Congress is all about self-interest. Division, playing to advantage, acquisition and retention of power. That's it.

They are about nothing greater than that. The judiciary, the population of Article III judges, that or who are not elected, they are our best stewards of this democracy right now. Not perfect, not going to get it right all the time, can be swayed by politics, of course, of course, of course, but less so than the other two. So in one way, I am better with the president doing this this way than in other ways because it's so much easier to litigate. And I hope we see that litigation.

because I don't believe the law is on his side. I do not believe history is on his side. And I believe that the president, wittingly or unwittingly, is taking us down a very dangerous road. Beware. I'm Chris Cuomo. Thank you for coming to the Chris Cuomo Project, subscribing and following. I'll check you out on News Nation, 8p and 11P Eastern. week, day, night, and you can get me on all the socials. Look, the free agent gear is back because, man, we need to get away from these parties. They are killing us.

They make you swallow so much shit in the name of fealty to them, as if you're in prison, and you need them. As imperfect as they are, as hostile as they are, they've got your back. They do not have your back. They have their own. Where are your independence? Be a free agent. I use the money not to buy more fresh threads.

I use it to help people get COVID treatment and long COVID treatment and to make donations in our name, which you will know about. My brothers and sisters, the problems are real. Our approach to getting past it is as well. We've got to be desperate for better. Let's get after it. Thank you.