In a conference call on 1 June with military advisors and all 50 governors, President Trump told the governors, “If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
The president added, “Most of you are weak. You have to dominate. If you don’t dominate, you’re wasting your time. You’re going to look like a bunch of jerks. You have to arrest people. And you have to try people and they have to go to jail for long periods of time.”
A number of governors backed the president’s statement that violence occurring at some of the demonstrations can be linked to people on the radical left, but no evidence has been presented yet.
President Trump got a pushback from Mark Esper, his Secretary of Defense, for saying he would he would order in federal troops “to dominate the streets.” Esper said, “The option to use active-duty forces in a law enforcement role should only be used as a matter of last resort and only in the most urgent and dire of situations. We are not in one of those situations now. I do not support invoking the Insurrection Act.”
The 1807 Insurrection Act permits a president to bring in the military or federalize the National Guard in the event an individual state cannot stop unlawful acts or are themselves breaking a federal law.
The Act has been used to stop the Ku Klux Klan from killing blacks following the end of the Civil War, to aid in desegregating southern states during the 1950s and ‘60s, and, in 1992, to help the state of California quell the Los Angeles riots.
TREND FORECAST: According to a new NBC/WSJ poll, Joe Biden is leading Donald Trump by 7 points in the Presidential Reality Show,® which has been consistent in their last two polls.
The poll also shows Biden is ahead of Trump by 21 points among women, 56 percent to 35 percent.
And yesterday, a new CNN/SSRS poll showed Biden’s lead over Trump at 14 points and Trump’s approval rating falling to 38 percent.
Despite these results, we maintain our 2020 Top Trend forecast of “Election 2020: Trump by Default.” As economic conditions deteriorate; protests accelerate; and crime, looting, and violence increase, Trump will gain strong support from swing states most affected, thus again winning the electoral vote while losing the popular vote.
