President Donald Trump strongly suggested that he was preparing to use the Insurrection Act to crack down on dissent nationwide in an interview Sunday while warning that National Guard deployments would take place in San Francisco next.
He spoke in a pre-recorded discussion that aired Sunday on Fox News’s Sunday Morning Futures with Maria Bartiromo about using the power of the federal government to militarize the National Guard in states where he and his team claim that Democratic officials are refusing to cooperate with federal law enforcement and crime-fighting efforts, including the White House’s mass deportation campaign.
During the conversation, he falsely asserted that nearly half of all U.S. presidents have invoked the act. Fifteen U.S. presidents have invoked the Insurrection Act (out of 45 men to hold the position in total).
“Don’t forget, and I haven’t used it, but don’t forget: I can use the Insurrection Act. 50 percent of the presidents, almost, have used that. And that’s unquestioned power,” the president told Bartiromo, before making a somewhat garbled point about Democratic state officials: “I choose not to. I’d rather do this [without invoking it]. But I’m met constantly by fake politicians, politicians that think that they – you know, it’s not a part of the radical left movement to have safety.”
He also confirmed that he was imminently planning to send National Guard troops to San Francisco, while describing himself as “the chief law enforcement officer of the United States.”
“San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world, and then 15 years ago, it went wrong. It went woke,” said the president. “But we’re going to go to San Francisco, and we’re going to make it great.”
The city, which is experiencing a 20-year low in its overall crime rate, has areas where crime and issues including drug use and homelessness are persistent problems such as the famous Tenderloin district. In 2023, according to city statistics, the Tenderloin district averaged more than four calls reporting violent crimes per day. Rates of violent and non-violent crime have fallen in the district, but still remain higher than in surrounding areas for the most part.
By sending troops to San Francisco, Trump would once again be putting himself in direct conflict with Gavin Newsom, California’s Democratic governor. Newsom, who is a leading possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, challenged the president in the courts after Trump used National Guard forces to protect ICE agents and detention centers in Los Angeles earlier this year.
“California will resist any effort by Donald Trump to militarize another American city for his own vanity and deranged fantasies,” a spokesperson for the governor told Politico in a statement. “California doesn’t want or need the National Guard to police its streets. In this state, we take care of our own communities—unlike Trump who can’t even pay the soldiers under his command.”
The White House and Department of Justice have battled state leaders in the courts over the efforts to expand Trump’s National Guard deployments. The president deployed troops to Memphis with the support of the state’s Republican governor, and has battled with Democratic leaders in Illinois and Oregon over sending troops to Chicago and Portland.
A senior Border Patrol official tweeted that criminal organizations were allegedly plotting to “kidnap and kill law enforcement officers” in cities like Chicago, while Attorney General Pam Bondi told a Senate panel earlier this month that the deployments were necessary to protect ICE facilities.
San Francisco’s mayor hasn’t issued a statement directly responding to the president’s threats, but on Saturday released a video message thanking thousands of city residents who hit the streets as part of nationwide “No Kings” protests against the president.
Millions in cities and towns in every state turned out on Saturday for the demonstrations, which come after months of the Trump administration’s threats to federalize U.S. cities and the growing presence of ICE agents and raids in communities across the country. White House officials cast the demonstrators as far-left radicals and “terrorists” ahead of Saturday’s events. No major acts of violence were reported, despite the massive numbers protesting around the U.S.
The president trolled protesters on Sunday with another AI-generated video depicting him in a fighter jet dropping excrement on crowds in Times Square.
