The response to the current protests provides another test of the limits of executive power.
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President Donald Trump on Monday night threatened to use the full power of the federal government, including the military through the use of the more than 200-year-old Insurrection Act, to quell protests that have erupted in dozens of cities across the country in the last week.
Trump’s comments from the Rose Garden, his first addressing the nation on the escalating racial unrest in the wake of the May 25 death of George Floyd at the hand of a Minneapolis police officer, came as a battalion of active duty troops were reportedly en route to Washington from North Carolina to provide support to local law enforcement.
Trump did not address the reports of deploying Army soldiers from Fort Bragg within the District of Columbia but said he believed governors and mayors were not responding aggressively enough to the protests.
“These are not acts of peaceful protest. These are acts of domestic terror,” the president said.
“We are putting everybody on warning, our 7 o’clock curfew will be strictly enforced,” Trump said, as federal law enforcement officials were deployed across Washington to assist in enforcing a curfew announced earlier in the day by Mayor Muriel Bowser.
Relevant key terms.
- president
- full power
- federal government
- military
- Insurrection Act
- protests
- cities
- police
- troops
- local law enforcement
- governors
- mayors
- peaceful protest
- curfew
- federal law enforcement
- D.C. National Guard
- law enforcement duties
- arrest
- detention
- civilian law enforcement duties
- open ended
- checks
- domestic
- House
- Armed Services
- Chairman
- Washington Democrat
- Secretary of Defense
- democracy
- dictatorship
- local politicians
- citizens
- Republican Senator
- Posse Comitatus
- Justice Department
- Pentagon
- active duty units
- law and order
- U.S. Park Police
- demonstrators