Two Democratic senators are urging President Joe Biden to try and prevent President-elect Donald Trump from deploying the U.S. military on home soil once he takes office as he’s promised in recent months, NBC News reported Monday.
Last week, Sens. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., wrote a letter to Biden and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin asking them to issue a policy directive that “prohibits the mobilization of active duty military or federalizing National Guard personnel to be deployed against their fellow Americans.”
Trump has long vowed to use the military to aid with the mass deportation of immigrants without legal immigration status. He has also said he would use military force against the “enemy within,” referring to his political enemies.
The letter specifically asks Biden to clarify that the Insurrection Act, which lets the president use military force domestically, is only to be used in rare circumstances when local law enforcement is completely overwhelmed and they ask for help. Warren and Blumenthal also call for the enforcement of the “Standing Rules for the Use of Force,” which states that any use of military force must be reasonable in magnitude.
“If unaddressed, any ambiguity on the lawful use of military force, coupled with President-elect Trump’s demonstrated intent to utilize the military in such dangerous and unprecedented ways, may prove to be devastating,” the letter reads. “We are deeply concerned that during his previous term in office, President-elect Trump repeatedly sought to use the military to impede the First Amendment rights of Americans,” the letter states, the senators adding that it is “antithetical” to “weaponize the military” to advance the president’s political interests.
In his first term, Trump threatened to deploy the U.S. military and National Guard in response to the Black Lives Protests across the country. In the years since, he has repeatedly expressed a desire to use soldiers to squash dissent.
“We have some sick people, radical left lunatics. And I think they’re the — 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,” Trump told Fox News in October.
Many of Trump’s closest allies, including Vice President-elect JD Vance, have reaffirmed his intentions.
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