Trump 'has a Plan B' for US cities — but is holding off for now

Although President Donald Trump has federalized National Guard troops in U.S. cities — including Los Angeles and Chicago — one step he hasn't taken so far is invoking the Insurrection Act of 1807. The last U.S. president to do that was the late George H.W. Bush in May 1992 during the Los Angeles Riots, which followed the acquittal of the police officers who beat Black motorist Rodney King.

But unlike Trump in 2025, Bush wasn't acting against the wishes of a California governor. When Bush federalized California National Guard troops, he did so at the request of Republican then-Gov. Pete Wilson.

In an article published on October 8, Politico reporter Myah Ward describes the Insurrection Act as Trump's "Plan B" but notes that so far, he has held off on using it.

"President Donald Trump threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act if federal courts bar him from sending National Guard troops to Portland, Oregon," Ward reports. "It's a tactic the president has been anxious to use, but several key allies and White House officials don't think he'll need it. At least for now…. Even as the White House insists the president is on firm legal ground, Trump has made clear he has a Plan B: the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that gives the president emergency powers to deploy troops on U.S. soil to quell what the president deems an insurrection."

Ward notes that Trump "declined to invoke the Insurrection Act earlier this year" after Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth "recommended against it."

"Its invocation would fulfill a long-term desire of the president," Ward explains. "He views it as the epitome of presidential power and considered invoking it to quell unrest during the George Floyd protests in 2020. Aides suggested it again after he lost the 2020 election, and he talked about it extensively during the 2024 campaign. And allies discussed it in the context of the 2024 election, concerned that Trump's victory would spark violent protest movements. It would mark major intensification in the president's crackdown on crime, immigration and riots, making his promises to use the military for domestic law enforcement on the campaign trail a reality."

Miles Taylor, who served in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) during Trump's first presidency but is now an outspoken Never Trump conservative, warns that in 2025, Trump is taking steps that Republican officials were strongly advising him against seven or eight years ago.

Taylor told Politico, "This is what Trump wanted to do in his first term, and now, he's putting these measures in place. One of the things that was an active conversation inside the Trump Administration in the first term, when I was even there, was that in a second term, they would need to do as many extreme things as fast as possible to get them run up to the Supreme Court as quickly as possible."

Read Myah Ward's full report for Politico at this link.