SCOTUStoday for Wednesday, October 8 – SCOTUSblog – Trump keeps threatening to use the Insurrection Act. What is it?
(Katie Barlow)
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SCOTUStoday for Wednesday, October 8
By Kelsey Dallas and Nora Collins, on Oct 8, 2025
Trump administration
Trump keeps threatening to use the Insurrection Act. What is it?
President Donald Trump has said repeatedly he could invoke the 1807 statute, which gives the president the power to deploy the U.S. military domestically.
President Donald Trump has suggested he could invoke the Insurrection Act “if necessary.” Andrew Harnik / Getty Images
Oct. 7, 2025, 2:17 PM PDT, By Gary Grumbach and Dareh Gregorian
President Donald Trump suggested numerous times this week that he could invoke the sweeping presidential powers granted by the Insurrection Act “if necessary.”
“It’s been invoked before,” Trump told reporters Tuesday, adding, “We want safe cities.”
Using the Insurrection Act was something Trump repeatedly suggested he might do in his first term, although he never actually did.
A spokeswoman for the White House, Abigail Jackson, said in a statement Tuesday that the president has “exercised his lawful authority to protect federal officers and assets. President Trump will not turn a blind eye to the lawlessness plaguing American cities.”
Here’s a look at what the Insurrection Act is, and what it would enable the president to do.
What is the Insurrection Act?
While the military is generally barred from being deployed for domestic law enforcement without congressional authorization, the Insurrection Act gives the president power to deploy the U.S. military domestically and to federalize National Guard troops during specific circumstances.
It was signed into law by President Thomas Jefferson in March 1807.
Has it ever been used before?
Many times, but not in decades.
George Washington used an earlier version of the law to stamp out the Whiskey Rebellion in 1792.
President George H.W. Bush was the last to use it during the deadly 1992 Los Angeles riots, following a request from the city’s Democratic mayor and the state’s Republican governor.
What can trigger the use of the Insurrection Act?
While one justification for invoking the act is clear — that the president can take action if asked to do so by a governor or a Legislature — the other standards mentioned in the statute are broad and vague, giving the president wide latitude.
“Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings,he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion,” the statute reads.
Another section says the president, “by using the militia or the armed forces, or both,” shall “takesuch measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy” if it “hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State,” or if it “opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United Statesor impedes the course of justice under those laws.”
The statutes don’t define the terms, essentially leaving it up to the president to determine what constitutes an insurrection or rebellion, and when it’s been quelled.
Chief Justice Melville Fuller, who served from 1888-1910, took the judicial oath on this day in 1888. To mark the occasion, consider shaking someone’s hand. Fuller instituted the practice of having the justices shake hands before taking the bench and before private conferences “as a reminder that differences of opinion on the Court did not preclude overall harmony of purpose,” according to the Supreme Court’s website.
Morning Reads
- Police: Man arrested at D.C. Catholic church had 200 homemade explosives (Emma Uber, The Washington Post) — D.C. court records show that the man arrested on Sunday morning before a church service expected to be attended by several Supreme Court justices, known as the Red Mass, “had more than 200 handmade destructive devices” in a tent outside the cathedral and a notebook in which he “expressed animosity toward the Catholic Church, Supreme Court justices, members of the Jewish faith and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” according to The Washington Post. The man, Louis Geri, “faces eight charges in connection to the incident Sunday, including manufacture or possession of a weapon of mass destruction in furtherance of a hate crime.” He is being held without bond.
- What is the Alliance Defending Freedom? (Abbie VanSickle, The New York Times) — Attorneys with the Alliance Defending Freedom were in front of the court on Tuesday representing Kaley Chiles in her challenge to Colorado’s “conversion therapy” ban. The law firm, “founded more than three decades ago as a legal-defense fund focused on conservative Christian issues, has become a mainstay before the Supreme Court in recent years, particularly in high-profile culture war cases,” according to The New York Times. ADF also is involved in upcoming cases on transgender athletes and faith-based pregnancy centers.
- 5th Circuit will reconsider Louisiana’s 10 Commandments law after partial court struck it down (Patrick Wall, The Times-Picayune) — The full U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit agreed on Monday to hear a case on a Louisiana law requiring “public schools and colleges to post the Ten Commandments in classrooms,” according to The Times-Picayune. A three-judge panel previously held that the law is “plainly unconstitutional.” The dispute “has been closely watched as a test of the traditional divide between church and state, and legal observers say it’s likely that the U.S. Supreme Court will ultimately hear the case.”
- Former Attorney General Eric Holder calls on Democrats to focus on Supreme Court expansion, term limits (Hanna Panreck, Fox News) — During an appearance on the At Our Table podcast, former Attorney General Eric Holder called on the Democratic Party to “focus on expanding the Supreme Court,” according to Fox News. “I think the Supreme Court has to be reformed, potentially, you know, expanded. We cannot simply allow this court to continue to do that which it has done. They don’t focus on precedent, they focus on personnel. And by that, I mean, you know, they think, ‘Alright, we’ve got six votes and we can now do things that are inconsistent with precedent, long-term precedents that have been put in place,’ to the detriment of our democracy, to the detriment of fairness — and that means political fairness as well as economic fairness,” Holder said. At minimum, he added, the Democratic Party platform should include a call for term limits of 18 years for Supreme Court justices.
- Enshrine Nine (Edward Whelan, NYU Law’s Democracy Project) — Edward Whelan also addressed Supreme Court expansion in a recent column for NYU Law’s Democracy Project, although, unlike Holder, he argued against it. “Packing the Court would threaten to destroy its legitimacy as an institution independent of politics. To be sure, the process of nominating and confirming Supreme Court justices is inherently and inescapably political. But it’s one thing to have politics—and, yes, political hardball—shape how vacancies are filled as they arise. It’s quite another to have politics create a whole new set of seats for the purpose of transforming the Court,” he wrote.
SCOTUS Quick Hits
- The justices will hear argument today in two cases: Bost v. Illinois State Board of Elections (on the circumstances under which a federal candidate can challenge state election rules) and U.S. Postal Service v. Konan (on whether someone can sue the government over intentionally undelivered mail). In the coming days, SCOTUSblog will have an argument analysis for each case.
- On Monday, the court declined to temporarily block a district court order requiring changes to the Google Play app store based on its violation of antitrust law. The court offered no explanation for its denial, as is its custom on the interim docket.
- The justices will take part in a private conference on Friday, where they will discuss cases and petitions. An order list outlining some of what was decided at the conference is expected on Tuesday at 9:30 a.m. EDT.
A Closer Look: Jurisdiction Stripping
As discussed in some of the news above, although Supreme Court justices have life tenure, Congress has the power to check the court’s behavior through structural reforms (such as changing the number of justices), affecting its makeup (by confirming and impeaching justices), and through some other legislative actions (such as controlling the judiciary’s budget).
Perhaps one of the most direct (and less mentioned) mechanisms is jurisdiction stripping. Under Article III, the court has what is known as “original jurisdiction” – which means that it is the first to hear and rule on the dispute – over “[c]ases affecting Ambassadors, other public Ministers and Consuls, and those in which a State shall be Party.” The court hears all other cases on appeal from a lower-court decision. And, according to the Constitution, the Supreme Court’s appellate jurisdiction is subject to “such Exceptions, and . . . such Regulations as the Congress shall make.” To many, this has been understood to mean that lawmakers can restrict the kinds of cases the Supreme Court can review on appeal.
Congress has generally used jurisdiction stripping only in isolated instances. In the 1869 case of Ex parte McCardle, for example, the court upheld the legislative branch’s power to deny the Supreme Court’s authority to hear a habeas petition on appeal. More recently, in 1996, the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act limited the court’s ability to review deportation orders.
As Stephen Wermiel wrote in his SCOTUSblog column, jurisdiction stripping follows broader discussions on the separation of powers, recently reflected in the No Kings Act proposed by Senate Democrats in 2024, which would strip the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction over presidential immunity cases after Trump v. United States (and send the cases instead to lower courts). Even though that bill may not go anywhere, it has put jurisdiction stripping back in the news.
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