John Yoo, a former deputy attorney general in the Bush administration and law professor, argued on Fox News on Wednesday that the recent Supreme Court ruling limiting President Donald Trump’s ability to send the National Guard into Chicago means Trump could deploy Marines there instead.
Yoo explained Trump’s rationale for wanting to put National Guard troops into Chicago, which the governor of Illinois refused to do and successfully sued to stop from happening. Yoo noted Trump initially argued:
“Look, I’m trying to enforce the laws with ICE agents, with federal law enforcement, and I can’t do it, so I need to call the National Guard.” But the statute says the president has to be unable to enforce a law with regular forces. What does “regular forces” mean? We don’t know.
The Supreme Court has never decided that question before yesterday. The Supreme Court now says “regular forces” means you have to try with the regular Armed Forces first before you can bring out the National Guard. So the unintended consequence here might be that the president is going to have to call the 82nd Airborne or the Marines or the 101st Airborne Division, as, for example, President Eisenhower did after Brown versus Board of Education in the South to enforce desegregation. President Trump might have to do that first in order to protect those federal buildings, those ICE agents, and then, if they fail, he can then call out the National Guard.
Fox’s Kevin Corke replied, “Got it. J.B. Pritzker, the governor in the state of Illinois, is saying this: ‘Today is a big win for Illinois and American democracy. This is an important step in curbing the Trump administration’s consistent abuse of power and slowing Trump’s march toward authoritarianism.’ That’s purely political. I think the president has obviously tried to work within the framework of the law as his legal eagles have seen it. Fifteen seconds or so—what happens from… and I guess I answered my own question when I say I’m not surprised by Pritzker’s response, and I guess you aren’t either.”
Yoo replied, “I’m not. He’s, of course, injecting a lot of heated political rhetoric into this. But what’s going to happen: Trump will, of course, now have the right to go to the Supreme Court on the full merits. As you said, Kevin, this is just preliminary. He may be able to get the court, the full Court, to reverse this preliminary decision. But second, and I think more worrisome, is the Supreme Court is essentially inviting President Trump to send regular armed troops and deploy those to Chicago and Los Angeles before he can send the National Guard. I think a governor would rather have National Guard troops than the 82nd Airborne and the Marine Corps patrolling the streets of Chicago.”
Watch the clip above via Fox News.
