(June 9, 2025)

A threat by the defense secretary to deploy a force whose battle honors include Belleau Wood, Iwo Jima and Fallujah onto American streets does not only offend principles of democratic republican government. It would almost certainly be illegal, unless Trump invokes the Insurrection Act. At this point, the conditions of that legislation look nowhere near being met. Trump said Sunday he was not yet ready to invoke the act.

Still, all this is chilling given his warning last year that he’d be prepared to use the military against “the enemy from within.”