Donald Trump has indicated he is open to using the Insurrection Act to deploy U.S. troops on American soil – and a big majority of his party agrees with him.
Trump is just days away from taking the Oath of Office on the same spot where rioters breached the Capitol on January 6 four years ago, in an event that provoked new focus on when and where it is lawful to deploy the military domestically.
During his campaign, Trump spoke about not repeating what he considers mistakes of his first term when it comes to establishing order in the streets.
The end of his tenure featured protests and violent demonstrations over the murder of George Floyd, with key aides chafing at a push to put thousands of troops on the ground.
Now, a new poll for DailyMail.com by J.L. Partners reveals the depth of support the president-elect has for invoking the Insurrection Act, even at a time his political enemies fear he will carry out ‘retribution.’
Asked whether they support using it, an overwhelming 57 percent of Republicans backed the idea strongly or somewhat.
That compares to just 21 percent of Democrats, with 61 percent opposed.
Overall, the public is split, with 35 percent in favor and a somewhat larger 39 percent opposed.
A total of 57 percent of Republicans strongly or somewhat support Trump invoking the Insurrection Act against ‘domestic enemies’
Then results suggest that if Trump wants to deploy the military on U.S. soil, it won’t cost him with his MAGA base.
Support was highest among younger people, with 44 percent in the 18-29 demographic backing it, while 59 percent of those 65 and over oppose it.
Respondents were told that some have suggested ‘Trump might invoke the Insurrection Act once he became President, giving him executive powers and the ability to direct the military against “domestic enemies”‘, and asked whether they would support or oppose it.
During his campaign, Trump raged against ‘crime dens’ in Democratic run cities like Chicago, raising alarms among his critics about what were his intentions with the military he controls as commander-in-chief.
‘The next time, I’m not waiting. One of the things I did was let them run it and we’re going to show how bad a job they do,’ Trump said in Iowa in 2023. ‘Well, we did that. We don’t have to wait any longer.’
Trump has spoken about deploying U.S. troops at the southern border, using them to put down unrest.
He has also discussed using the military to carry out mass deportations that were a key campaign promise.
Plans to conduct large-scale immigration raids on across the country in cities like Chicago 24 hours after his inauguration emerged on Friday night.
‘I will rescue Aurora and every town that has been invaded and conquered,’ Trump said when talking about the Denver suburb he described as a ‘war zone’ because of Venezuelan gang activity. ‘We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country.’
‘We will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail or kick them out of our country,’ Trump said while raging against gangs in the U.S.
The Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement. But Trump has long spoken about deploying the military domestically while raging about an ‘enemy within’
Trump demanded the military put 10,000 troops on U.S. streets following George Floyd protests, some of which turned violent, in 2020, CBS reported
He also spoke about using the military against the ‘enemy within.’
‘I think the bigger problem is the enemy from within,’ Trump told Fox News Channel last fall. ‘We have some very bad people. We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the big — and it should be very easily handled by, if necessary, by National Guard, or if really necessary, by the military, because they can’t let that happen.’
Democrats on the Senate Judiciary questioned Trump’s pick to run the Justice Department, Pam Bondi, about whether she would have fealty to Trump while serving as the nation’s top law enforcement officer.
Some raised doubts after she failed to state who won the 2020 election, instead repeating that Biden is the president of the United States.
Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal said he doesn’t think he can support Bondi because ‘the attorney general has to have the grit and gumption to say no to Donald Trump, and Pam Bondi has yet to convince me that she has those qualities to stand up to Donald Trump.’
‘I see no way that I can responsibly vote for a nominee for attorney general who lacks the ability to say no to Donald Trump when he asked her to do something that’s illegal or immoral. It’s not a question of whether or if, Donald Trump will ask the attorney general to do something illegal or immoral. It’s when,’ he says.
Trump sent shockwaves through D.C. Wednesday after a top House Republican charged with overseeing the CIA and FBI was dramatically replaced. Speaker Mike Johnson stunned lawmakers Wednesday when he announced that he is replacing House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner. Johnson denied Trump had a direct role, but repeatedly praised Turner’s capability even while booting him.
The Insurrection Act actually references a series of laws passed by Congress in the first 100 years of the Republic. It provides an exception to the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the military from taking part in domestic law enforcement, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.
Invoking the Insurrection Act provides for a temporary exception.
Russell Vought, Trump’s nominee to run the Office of Management and Budget and a author of Project 2025 who testified in the Senate Thursday, spoke about domestic use of the military in an undercover sting video set by a British journalism nonprofit.
‘The President has, you know, the ability both along the border and elsewhere to maintain law and order with the military,” Vought said on camera. “And that’s something that, you know, it’s going to be important for, for him to remember and his lawyers to affirm.”
Trump demanded the military put 10,000 troops on U.S. streets following George Floyd protests, some of which turned violent, in 2020, CBS reported.
He met resistance form his Defense Secretary, Mark Esper, as well as AG Bill Barr and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Mark Milley.
Trump named Milley and Esper in an online post Wednesday of his administration blacklist, asking people not to bother to ‘send, or recommend to us, people who worked with, or are endorsed by,’ them, or people he accused of having ‘Trump Derangement Syndrome.’