We've been desperately waiting for leadership from Donald Trump as the country has fallen
into further disrepair and chaos, combining a 100 year pandemic with more civil unrest
than we've seen in a very long time. And as I told you yesterday, Donald Trump spent the
weekend tweeting from his bunker. He emerged yesterday to the Rose Garden of the White
House. And instead of being conciliatory, instead of bringing down tensions, instead
of doing something that we could call sensible leadership, Donald Trump went full authoritarian,
saying that when governors don't handle protests the way Trump wants them to handle them, he
will activate and deploy the military to states for law enforcement purposes. Here is Trump
himself making the statement yesterday. That is why I am taking an immediate presidential
action to stop the violence and restore security and safety in America. I am mobilizing all
available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting,
to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law abiding Americans, including
your Second Amendment rights. Therefore, the following measures are going into effect immediately.
First, we are ending the riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country. We
will end it now. Today, I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the National Guard
in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets. Mayors and governors must establish
an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled. If a city or
state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property
of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the
problem for them. So there are about 100 different things to
talk about here. But don't kid yourselves. This is not a rehearsal. This is the authoritarian
nightmare that we've been worried about with Donald Trump for three and a half years that
has been slowly building and escalating. And first of all, just like aside from the legality
of this, which I want to talk about, there's a lot of misinformation spreading about it.
This is the opposite of what we need. We have peak unrest in this country started because
law enforcement used too much force in Minneapolis on George Floyd. So Donald Trump comes out
and says, hey, governors, you need to up the force used by law enforcement or I will up
it for you by deploying the military to your states. It is inconceivable. This is the worst
possible thing that you could do. Second, is this legal? Now, there is a lot of misinformation
and disinformation being spread about this. So let's actually go through each step. And
I'll tell you where a lot of people are getting either confused or they're deliberately spreading
disinformation. So in the United States, we have something called the Posse Comitatus
Act or Comitatus Act. I don't know how it's pronounced. It dates back to 1878. And what
this act does is it says the federal government can't use federal military personnel to enforce
domestic policies. That's exactly what Donald Trump wants to do. Donald Trump wants to send
federal military personnel to states to enforce local law enforcement policy. Understand that
when a state deploys their National Guard, that does not violate this law. A lot of people
don't necessarily make the distinction between National Guards are state units. They're administered
by the state governor. And we've had during Corona virus, we've even had National Guard
deployed by governors to help with traffic or test sites or whatever else the case may
be. Perfectly legal doesn't violate the Posse Comitatus Act. Donald Trump here is talking
about deploying federal military assets to states to enforce a domestic law. And that
is exactly what is prohibited by the Posse Comitatus Act. So it's step one now. Step
two, can Trump get around that? And the answer is yes, he can. And this is where a lot of
the disinformation is spreading. So Pit pay particular attention to the details here,
which are that there is something called the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act can
be invoked by a president. And it would give them the authority to legally deploy federal
military within the United States if it is in a situation where you need to. Suppress
civil disorder, insurrection or rebellion. Now this is where the misinformation is starting.
You've got legal experts going on TV and saying, listen, guys, the Posse Comitatus Act is not
in play because Donald Trump is planning to or is going to or can invoke the Insurrection
Act at any time. This has been done a lot and it's really not a big deal. And usually
they'll say, listen, just 28 years ago, it was used in 1992 in Los Angeles during the
Rodney King riots. The president invoked the Insurrection Act in order to deploy the military
to California. But what they're not telling you is that the usage of the Insurrection
Act in 1992 was the president using it at the request of the California governor, Pete
Wilson. So what we have here is Trump threatening governor saying, hey, guys, if you don't enforce
what I believe needs to be enforced, I am going to fight. You go against you by using
the Insurrection Act to deploy the federal military to your states. Nineteen ninety two
was Governor Pete Wilson saying, hey, let's invoke the Insurrection Act because things
are out of control. And that was done with executive order one two eight zero four by
President George H. W. Bush, of course, 92 to an election year. Bill Clinton winning
in November of 92, being sworn in in January of 1993. What we are talking about here is
a president unilaterally imposing the Insurrection Act on governors. So we can't look at 1992
because in 1992, Pete Wilson said, we need to do this. This is Trump saying not. I'm
working with the governors to do this. It's I'm going to punish the governors. I'm going
to fight the governors with the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act of 18 07 has not
been used unilaterally in 57 years, and it has never been used in the way Trump wants
to use it, which is essentially to override local discretion regarding how to manage the
unrest that is currently going on. When you look at some of the previous uses of the Insurrection
Act against a governor's wishes, they were done against racism. OK, so understand the
insanity of what we have. What we look at in the past would be Lincoln in 1861. Right.
We had the Civil War to fight slavery. Eisenhower in 57 in Arkansas to fight state racism. Kennedy
in 1962 in Mississippi. Kennedy in 1963 in Alabama. So when in the past a president has
invoked the Insurrection Act, not in in concert with governors, but against them. It has been
to fight racism. We could not be further from that in what Donald Trump is trying to do
here. Now, if Trump tries to do do it, it could become a legal fight. But this is all
part of the continued distract the thought. I tweeted last night that Trump's strategy
here on the protests, ironically, this is this is not like a Russia thing. But ironically,
Trump's strategy is see CCP. And I'll tell you what that stands for confuse about what's
actually happening in our country. That's number one. Number two, conflate protesters
versus looters versus rioters versus insiders. Criticize everybody. Right. So governors,
Democrats, protesters. And then lastly, ccc p the P is pander pander to his Trump's base,
much of which loves authoritarianism. Also pandering to his base by going and staging
a propaganda picture of himself holding a Bible in front of St.. John's Cathedral after
yesterday's Rose Garden statement. And that's so what I want to talk about next.