Vice President JD Vance appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday and confirmed that the White House is actively considering whether to invoke the Insurrection Act, a rarely used federal law that would allow President Donald Trump to deploy the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement purposes without needing additional congressional approval.
Vance’s remarks come after weeks of speculation, as rising tensions between the Trump administration and leadership in several Democrat-run cities have put federal and state governments on a collision course. When asked directly by moderator Kristen Welker whether the president might use the 1807 statute, Vance responded, “The president is looking at all his options.” He clarified that Trump has not yet felt the need to use it but emphasized that the option remains on the table.
The law has not been invoked since the 1992 Los Angeles riots, when former President George H.W. Bush sent federal troops into the city following widespread violence and civil unrest. If Trump proceeds, it would mark the first use of the law in over three decades, and likely spark a legal and political battle across multiple levels of government.
Vance used the interview to shift the conversation toward what he described as a growing atmosphere of hostility toward law enforcement. “The problem here is not the Insurrection Act or whether we actually invoke it or not,” he said. “The problem is the fact that the entire media in this country, cheered on by a few far-left lunatics, have made it OK to tee off on American law enforcement. We cannot accept that in the United States of America.”
The interview comes on the heels of several major legal setbacks for the administration. Federal courts have temporarily blocked Trump’s attempts to deploy National Guard troops to Illinois and Oregon, where both state and local officials challenged the legality of the president’s move. A federal appeals court ruled Saturday that while the National Guard may remain federalized, the troops cannot be deployed in Illinois. Similar restrictions were issued for Oregon earlier this month.
The administration had tried to send Oregon National Guard troops into Portland, but when that was blocked, it attempted to deploy troops from California instead. That strategy was also shut down by a federal judge, who ruled that troops from any other state could not be sent to Portland without violating the law. The case is now under review by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, with no clear ruling date announced.
While Vance claimed that city officials in Portland and Chicago are failing to “keep the statistics properly,” data from both cities shows that violent crime has dropped in recent months, raising questions about the urgency of the deployments. Critics of the administration’s actions have accused the White House of using federal law enforcement and the military as political tools in the lead-up to the 2024 election.
Vice President JD Vance said that President Donald Trump is “looking at all options” for invoking the Insurrection Act to crackdown on his political opponents and send the military into US cities. https://t.co/HyQZkd92LF https://t.co/wgkTeVZHCC
— TAG24 NEWS (@TAG24_NEWS) October 13, 2025
In response, the White House has pointed to isolated surges in gang violence, attacks on ICE facilities, and defiance of federal immigration law in sanctuary cities as justification for exploring stronger federal action. “The president just wants people to be kept safe,” Vance said. “And we’re exploring everything that we can do to make sure that the American people are safe in their own country.”
Trump himself has weighed in on the issue during press events, saying, “If I had to enact [the Insurrection Act], I’d do that. If people were being killed and courts were holding us up, or governors or mayors were holding us up, sure, I’d do that.”
As the legal battles continue, the administration has made it clear that it believes the situation in cities like Portland and Chicago has reached a breaking point. State officials, however, are pushing back just as hard, creating a constitutional standoff that may end up in the Supreme Court.
What happens next could determine how far a president can go in deploying military power on U.S. soil — and whether the courts will let him.
