This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump threatened to send military troops into Minneapolis Thursday in response to ongoing protests against the immigration crackdown in Minnesota. An unprecedented 3,000 federal ICE agents are currently deployed in Minneapolis-Saint Paul in Operation — what they are calling — Metro Surge. Posting on social media, Trump wrote, quote, “If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT,” he said.
Protests against the ICE crackdown in Minnesota are ongoing, have only intensified since last week’s shooting of Renee Good, a U.S. citizen, poet and mother of three. Trump’s comments came after a second person was shot by ICE. Julio Cesar Sosa-Celis is a Venezuelan national, shot in the leg following a traffic stop in the Twin Cities.
This is White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt speaking to reporters yesterday.
PRESS SECRETARY KAROLINE LEAVITT: The Insurrection Act is a tool at the president’s disposal. As you know, it has been used sparingly, but it has been used by previous presidents in American history. And I think the president’s Truth Social post spoke very loud and clear to Democrats across this country, elected officials, who are using their platforms to encourage violence against federal law enforcement officers, who are encouraging left-wing agitators to unlawfully obstruct legitimate law enforcement operations.
AMY GOODMAN: For more, we’re joined by Baher Azmy, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Welcome to Democracy Now! In a moment, we’re going to talk about what’s happening with the Columbia University graduate, Mahmoud Khalil. But we wanted to start by talking about the Insurrection Act. What does this mean, that Trump could invoke it? What does it mean for Minnesota and the country?
BAHER AZMY: Well, just to say, the invocation of the Insurrection Act, which is an invocation of martial law, is like equal parts, you know, lawless and terrifying. In this country, we are not — in a constitutional republic, you’re not supposed to have the military policing municipalities, because the military, if you think about it, is not subject to law. It’s subject to executive will and power. And we’re governed by — municipalities are policed by police departments that are accountable to the mayor and to the public. So, the Insurrection Act does permit the use of the military in extremely limited circumstances, where, for example, there’s insurrection, which is — it was used by Lincoln during the Civil War, Sherman trying to crush Klan terrorism in Reconstruction, and to integrate Southern schools.
But the insurrection that’s supposedly happening here is, as they say in horror movies, coming from inside the house. It’s not from the people of Minneapolis. It’s from the ICE — paramilitary ICE agents themselves, who are fomenting this violence. And I’d note, you know, Trump probably sees this as a civil war. He’s inverting the reasons for using the Insurrection Act, which had been to tamp white supremacy in the past, and now it’s being used to support it.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And could you talk about the most recent use of the Insurrection Act back in 1992 during the Rodney King riots in L.A., the difference between that situation and what we’re seeing across the country now?
BAHER AZMY: Well, first, there was, you know, bona fide, demonstrable violence, and where the police department, which requested aid in L.A., could not control themselves. There’s no actual violence here, except that being perpetrated by the instigators, which is this paramilitary force of ICE. Local officials have not requested — in fact, rejected — aid. And the motives are different. There, at least there was a bona fide belief that the violence required additional police support via the military. Here, this, as we all know, is being leveraged as part of an autocratic power grab. And wait ’til there’s maybe just a simple flare-up during a midterm election and if the military gets deployed at that time, as well.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, this comes in the aftermath of the Supreme Court striking down President Trump’s attempts to mobilize National Guard troops to Chicago and other cities. Could you talk about the connection there?
BAHER AZMY: Yeah. Surprisingly, this Supreme Court, they instituted some limitations on the possibility of using at least the National Guard. This is a slightly different legal question. I’m a little bit worried, given this court’s fascinated embrace of executive power, that they would give the Trump administration more leeway to use its, you know, judgment and discretion to deploy military force. But we need to be, obviously, in the courts and in the streets protesting this kind of gratuitous use of military violence.
