Trump's Trials - Trump's power to deploy National Guard, explained

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

President Trump is bucking tradition and legal precedent in pushing to deploy the National Guard to Democratic-led cities such as Portland, Ore., and Chicago due to what he says is rampant crime and to support his crackdown on illegal immigration. NPR's Jaclyn Diaz and Juliana Kim report.Then, NPR's Steve Inskeep speaks with Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul about President Trump's efforts to deploy National Guard forces to Chicago, over state and local objections.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's Terms from NPR. I'm Scott Detrow. We're going to be doing all sorts of things. Nobody ever thought was even possible. President Trump has brought back string to the White House. We can't just ignore the president's desires. This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode of Trump's terms, we bring you NPR's latest coverage of the 47th president.

With a focus on actions and policies he is pursuing on his own terms and in the process, taking the presidency into uncharted territory. Today's story starts right after this. I'm Mario Glass. On This American Life, we tell real life stories, really good ones. My mother said, I'm sorry that you weren't here because Father Sager was here visiting, and he found a very nice orphanage for you. And I said, but I'm not an orphan. Surprising stories in your podcast feed, This American Live. In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life. Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and methods.

NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories of real people, helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Steve Insky. And I'm Michelle Martin. Texas Governor Greg Abbott gave an up. update on President Trump's plan to use the Texas National Guard last night. Governor Abbott tweeted a picture of troops boarding a military plane. Deploying now, he wrote, although he did not give any details about where they were going. President Trump is called on the Texas Guard to move into cities led by Democrats,

including Portland, Oregon, and Chicago. The president asserts those cities are suffering from crime and that troops are needed to support his immigration crackdown. Elected officials in those cities see a political provocation on the streets. NPR's Jacqueline Diaz has been following this, and she's with us now. Good morning, Jacqueline. Good morning. So give us the latest in the legal battle over these troops that are supposedly heading to Chicago. Yeah, so Illinois and Chicago filed a lawsuit yesterday morning to try to stop the Trump administration from federalizing hundreds of National Guard troops, saying it's unnecessary, it's illegal. But a federal judge declined to block the deployment of troops from inside the state along with the force from Texas, at least for now. This all came a day after another federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration from deploying any National Guard troops into Portland, Oregon.

And around that same time that the federal judge out of Chicago weighed in, President Trump was asked by a reporter under what circumstances he would use the Insurrection Act. And that's the law that gives presidents the authority to deploy the military domestically. And here's what he said. I do it if it was necessary. So far it hasn't been necessary. but we have an insurrection act for a reason. 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, sure, I'd do that. So, Jacqueline, give us a little bit of a kind of a history lesson here. What kind of power does the president have to send troops into American cities? Basically, the Insurrection Act gives the president authority to use federal troops to calm civil unrest in a crisis and to take part in law enforcement like activities. which can include searches and arrests. But Trump has not used the Interaction Act. Under normal circumstances, the National Guard is under a state command.

That is, unless the President calls them into federal service. Here in the U.S., the National Guard has been used as a force to calm civil disturbances at the request of local officials. Retired Major General William N. Yardt led the Illinois National Guard from 2007 to 2012. It's an appropriate use of the Guard to use them for civil disturbance. but these aren't civil disturbances. We're not talking about civil disturbances. And so he's saying what Trump is doing now is not an appropriate use of that power.

Do we have any clarity as to why the president hasn't invoked the Insurrection Act? Like we heard earlier, Trump says if he wanted to, essentially he would. But the Insurrection Act has not been invoked since the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles more than 30 years ago. I asked Stephen Vlodick, a law professor at Georgetown, about what he makes of that. For better or for worse, I think the Insurrection Act has been a third rail politically for much of its history. And so instead of invoking the Interaction Act, the White House is actually instead using an obscure provision of federal law to claim authority to bring in those National Guard troops. It's Section 12406 of Title X. So this law goes back to 1903 and it allows the president to call up the National Guard if there's a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the federal government.

or if there's a danger of a foreign invasion. As I think you've been telling us, using that law as the federal government's legal basis for sending in troops has gotten mixed results so far. Yeah, that's right. In Portland, the judge wasn't convinced by the Trump administration's claim that authorities there are unable to calm anti-ice protests and that the federal government has to step in. The administration is now appealing that decision. And officials in Chicago tried to use the same legal argument.

And like we said, the judge in that case decided not. to block the National Guard deployment. That was NPR's Jacqueline Dias. Jacqueline, thank you. Thank you. Okay, so what are the legal arguments here, really? We're going to hear from the man who filed a lawsuit to stop the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago.

He is the Attorney General of the state of Illinois. Kwameh Raul, Attorney General, good morning. Good morning. Thanks for having me. Okay, so as we just heard from Jacqueline, the judge said the troops can come for now, but further arguments lie ahead. So I want to hear your case, starting with a basic fact. What is the legal standard for the president taking charge of the National Guard in this way?

First of all, the judge didn't say the troops can come. She said she hasn't decided yet. Got it. She delayed her decision. Okay. The legal basis is the Militia Clause of the Constitution gives Congress the power to determine when the president can federalize the guard. Posit comitatis says if you have a foreign invasion, which we do not have, or if you have a rebellion, or if the federal government is unable to carry out their responsibilities, then the Guard can be federalized.

None of those conditions exist, and the federal government is doing their job. The local law enforcement is doing their job, keeping peace. There's no civil unrest. The only agitation we see, the only chaos we see, is ICE and Border Patrol firing pepper gas at civilians, journalists, even Chicago police. officers have been subjected to it. Protests are peaceful. There's no single of rest. We've been around Chicago.

I was there the other day. I understand exactly what you're saying. At the same time, I wonder if you're going to have a challenge in court. The president asserts that these conditions exist. And when he deployed troops in Los Angeles, somewhat different case, but the courts broadly

deferred to the president's opinion on those questions. They let him judge what's an emergency, for example. Do you have any fact or argument that's going to differ from Los Angeles? Yeah, it's clearly evident that this is political in nature, and it's not in response to any unrest or any conditions on the ground. The president has said for months that he wanted to target Chicago. He's disparaged Chicago.

He and other members of his administration have said that. He's posted memes saying Chicago's about to find out why we call it the Department of War. All of these communications coming from the president and members of his administration demonstrate that this is about political targeting, not about conditions on the ground in Chicago or anywhere in the state of Illinois. I'm wondering if you might run into another political problem down the line. You go to court, say, as you already have, and suppose the judge rules for you and finds that this is an improper deployment of the National Guard. The administration makes an emergency appeal to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court says what it has said in numerous other cases. this year. We're going to defer to the president to let the president do what he wants, and we will decide sometime next year if it was legal or not. Well, that would be a very dangerous thing to occur. This is unprecedented. This is about the president of the United States militarizing American cities. It's un-American. This is not what we expect in our country to be

subject to military deploying in our streets to do civilian law enforcement work. It's not what we do in the United States of America. Is there any legal difference between summoning troops from Illinois, which the president has done, or using troops from Texas, which the governor is, Texas has volunteered for service? Well, there is slightly, you know, you don't go into the question of whether or not our governor has consented to the National Guard, but yet and still, in order to deploy National Guardsmen into the streets, into the state of Illinois, you still need to meet the prerequisites for deploying the National Guard.

I want to bring in another perspective here and ask how alarmed you feel people should be in Chicago of the idea of several hundred federal troops at this point, heading to their streets or federalized troops. Earlier on the program, we spoke with Richard Hayes. He served as a former adjutant general of Illinois, meaning he was Illinois's highest ranking member of the National Guard, and he essentially was telling us earlier on the program, don't get too upset here, even when the troops come.

There are a lot of things they can't and shouldn't legally do. Let's listen. All soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, Space Guardians, they have a duty to follow legal orders, just as much as they have a duty to not follow illegal ones. So you're duty-bound, either direction. And so that is grounded in you since you really joined the military from basic training all the way through your career. And so they're going to drive everything they do against the criteria that would be appropriate between legal and illegal orders.

I understood General Hayes to be saying it's okay. Troops can guard federal buildings. That's actually normal. They can do a number of other things, but they're unlikely to be used for law enforcement to turn their weapons on the people or anything like that. Are you reassured? I am not. In normal times, I would be with the normal leadership of what we've seen in the Department of Defense is a disrespect for our nation's well-decorated military leaders. And so I'm concerned about who the directions are going to come from. And that does cause alarm. I was in D.C. a couple of weeks ago, and I told people

They should be respectful of National Guardsmen because they're not volunteering to do this. They're being ordered to do this. And so I don't have any negative feelings about National Guardsmen. They're serving their country. But it's how they're being directed that I'm concerned about. We've heard the same thing from National Guard troops here in Washington, D.C. We've had reporters out talking with them, and they're like, hey, I'm just doing my job. I'm trying to be helpful here.

But let me ask what you think the larger plan is here, because I noticed that. that while the president has talked about rebellion and war, he's only mobilized a few hundred troops to attempt to get them into Portland. He's only mobilized a few hundred troops to try to get them to Chicago, a city of millions of people. Very small deployment. Do you assume that this is a way to prepare for some much larger deployment of troops if they can get the court's permission to do so?

Well, one of the things that I have articulated and we've said in our pleadings is that the president has said, has articulated that he wants to use the cities of America as military training grounds. It's come out of his own mouth. So there's your evidence. Kwame Raul is the Attorney General of Illinois, and his office has filed a lawsuit seeking to stop the deployment of the National Guard to Chicago. We're waiting on a ruling. Attorney General, thanks so much. Thanks for having me. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon.

And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR. Thank you.