'Believe them': Trump admin sparks alarm with new threat

Vice President JD Vance sparked alarm on Sunday when he said that President Donald Trump was considering invoking the Insurrection Act under the pretenses of combating violent crime in US cities.

During an interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” host Kristen Welker asked Vance if Trump was “seriously considering” invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow him to use the US military to carry out law enforcement operations.

Vance responded by saying Trump is “looking at all his options,” and added that he hasn’t felt the need to invoke it for the time being.

Vance proceeded to justify invoking the Insurrection Act, which he said could be necessary to protect the work of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials.

“We have to remember why we’re talking about this, Kristen,” he said. “Because crime has gotten out of control in our cities, because ICE agents, the people enforcing our immigration laws, have faced a 1,000% increase in violent attacks against them. We have people right now who are going out there, who are doing the job the president asked them to do, who are enforcing our immigration laws, they’re being assaulted.”

Welker countered by noting that a judge in Illinois found last week that the ICE facility in Broadview, Illinois has remained entirely open and operational despite being the target of protesters in recent weeks.

She also informed Vance that crime has been coming down significantly in both Chicago and Portland, two US cities where Trump has tried to deploy National Guard forces.

“Kristen, crime is down in Chicago and Portland often because they’re so overwhelmed at the local level, they’re not even keeping their statistics properly,” Vance replied, without providing any evidence to back up his claim.

Vance’s justifications for invoking the Insurrection Act on the grounds that he laid out drew alarmed reactions from many critics.

“This is a pretext to take over American cities by force,” wroteCNN political commentator Karen Finney in a post on X.

Shannon Watts, the founder of anti-gun violence organization Moms Demand Action, linked Vance’s comments to the current shutdown of the federal government and questioned whether the government deserved to be funded when its executive branch was threatening to unleash the military against its own citizens.

“Why should Democrats vote to open the government while this is still happening?” she asked.

Cornell William Brooks, a professor at the Harvard Kennedy School and former president of the NAACP, argued in a post on Bluesky that Vance’s comments show that the Trump administration “insults your intelligence.”

“The same administration that fired an economist for reporting statistics on the economy,” he wrote, “is asking you to not believe lower statistics on crime, not see safer streets, and accept the National Guard in your front yard.”

Democratic political strategist David Axelrod warned that the Trump administration seems genuinely eager to send troops into US cities.

“Believe them when they tell you what they’re planning, folks,” he wrote. “Trump wanted to use American troops against Americans in his first term, and was dissuaded by responsible civilian and military leaders. No more. The guardrails are gone.”

Attorney George Conway, a former Republican who left the party over its embrace of Trump, responded to Vance’s comments by posting a video of anti-ICE protesters in Chicago dancing in the streets to the classic Neil Diamond hit, “Sweet Caroline.”

Talk of invoking the Insurrection Act has ramped up in recent weeks, despite the fact that protests against ICE facilities in Illinois and Oregon have remained overwhelmingly peaceful and have featured impromptu dance parties carried out by people dressed in inflatable animalcostumes.