CBS News Legal Analyst Thane Rosenbaum reacts as President Trump suggests invoking Insurrection Act
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Transcript
18 segmentsPresident Trump has threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act in response to the situation in Minneapolis. So I thought it would be a good idea to have you come in this morning and explain to us a little bit about what the Insurrection Act is and what it isn't. In general, I know that it does allow the president to send the regular army troops or regular military forces into a city. of take the place of following Posse Comitatis Act in that case? Wow, that's good, Tony. Excellent. Yeah, that's exactly what it does. The Posse Comitatis Act. which Congress enacted, stands for the principle that U.S. military troops cannot work on domestic soil in arresting or conducting any activities against American civilians, essentially to say, our military troops belong for foreign wars. They're not supposed to be used against the people. But so there is this statute that responds to the Posse Comitata Act that says, well, if there's something that looks like an insurrection where there's an attempt to overtake the government or there's the extreme obstruction of justice that makes it impossible for civil society to operate, then the president has an obligation as the commander of chief to... to invoke the Inurrection Act, and its military truth for the further limited purposes of quelling whatever rebellion is taking place. Now, you know, you may remember this is where the Tom Cotton op-ed in New York Times during the Black Lives Matter riot. was entered into. He said that. He said, I'm a United States Senator, and I think we should invoke the Insurrection Act to quell these various acts of rebellion where local police powers were seemingly ineffective or just standing back and not doing anything. And, of course, that just got everyone crazy that, you know, he was suggesting that. But we should remember that the Two other times in the Deep South when governors and mayors of states refused to integrate their schools after the passage of the Civil Rights Act and Brown versus Board of Education. So, you know, we've used it, you know, for all sorts of different purposes, even something like that, where you saw military troops escorting African-American children into schools in Little Rock, Arkansas, or into the University of Mississippi. So we've used it before. But, you know, this time President Trump is saying, look, we're seeing...
extreme acts of obstruction all throughout Minnesota, and something needs to be done about. Now, I think, are there any limits as to the length of time that it can be invoked? And is this reviewable by the courts? It is. It is. But, you know, the thing about the Interaction Act and the Patriot Act, anything dealing with national security. The Supreme Court, but especially this Supreme Court with this conservative supermajority, is generally unwilling to override when the president is saying, we've got an emergency. You know, even the last Trump administration when it came to, you know. bans on Muslim countries receiving efforts to immigrate to the United States. The Supreme Court upheld that. They said, look, if the president is identifying a national security threat, then we usually defer to him or her in situations like this. So it is, of course, reviewable. It is supposed to be for a limited purpose. And, of course, if it extends beyond a limited purpose, that's exactly when it becomes a matter for the course to review. Another question about the Insurrection Act for your thing, because I think it's confusing to a lot of people. Is the Insurrection Act the same as martial law? Well, many people think it is. because essentially that's what it means, right? It seems that all of a sudden you have U.S. military troops overriding the police, local police powers of the state. The difference is that martial law always assumes that the federal government is now taking over entirely. And that's different from trying to just overtake. and to subdue either an act of insurrection or an act of rebellion or obstruction. But, you know, it looks the same, but I think martial law people associate when the government doesn't look like it's doing anything for limited purposes when it looks like it's taking over. Now, again, For a country, our, you know, the oldest democracy in the world, this has almost never happened here. So we don't use it very often. So I think that's why it has to be used with great concern, because we've really only used it in very few limited circumstances. And that's why the words martial law and the statute that you invoked earlier, posse comitatis, is so important because posse comitatis stands for the principle, no martial law, right? It says you as troops belong overseas, not against their own people.
They don't make arrests. They don't, you know, take actions against domestic populations to essentially say, we are not a nation that imposes martial law easily. It has to be done for a limited purpose. Thank you so much for taking time to clarify some of the meanings of the Insurrection Act very much in the news today because of the president's comments earlier this week. We always appreciate it when you take time to join us. Any time for you, Tony, you know that. Thank you.