When It Comes to Fighting Crime With the National Guard, Trump Says, He Can Do 'Anything I Want To Do'The president's plan to promote public safety by deploying troops in cities across the country is hard to reconcile with constitutional constraints on federal authority.
Jacob Sullum
8.27.2025
Testifying in favor of the National Firearms Act in 1934, Attorney General Homer S. Cummings readily conceded that the federal government had "no inherent police powers to go into certain localities and deal with local crime." Yet that is precisely what President Donald Trump says he is prepared to do by deploying the National Guard in cities such as Chicago, New York, and Baltimore.
That plan goes far beyond Trump's anti-crime campaign in Washington, D.C., a federally controlled jurisdiction where he has asserted his authority over the local National Guard and police department. Trump is now claiming he can use the National Guard to tackle crime anywhere he deems it necessary, even without the consent of state or local officials.
"I am not a dictator," Trump declared during a televised Cabinet meeting on Tuesday. He nevertheless asserted that, when it comes to fighting crime, he has "the right to do anything I want to do," because "I'm the president of the United States." In his view, that means "if I think our country is in danger—and it is in danger in these cities—I can do it."
Trump's aspirations as a nationwide crime fighter are plainly inconsistent with the limits that Cummings acknowledged, even as he pushed for federal regulation of firearms under the guise of taxation. The federal government's enumerated powers do not include a general authority to protect public safety against run-of-the-mill criminals, which is part of the police power reserved to the states under the 10th Amendment. But Trump thinks he can override those federalist principles by deploying the National Guard.
Is he right? As a matter of constitutional law, the answer seems clear. But when it comes to the president's statutory authority, the answer is alarmingly hazy.
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Source:
https://reason.com/2025/08/27/when-it-comes-to-fighting-crime-with-the-national-guard-trump-says-he-can-do-anything-i-want-to-do/
