Last Updated: November 19, 2025
Retired Four-Star Admirals and Generals and Former Service Secretaries: “[T]he military should be kept out of domestic law enforcement whenever possible.” “The active-duty military and National Guard serve a critical role in U.S. national security. Domestic deployments that fail to adhere to exacting legal requirements and long-established guardrails threaten their core national security and disaster relief missions, put the military at risk of politicization, and pose serious risks to both servicemembers and civilians.” [6/11/25, Source]
Retired Four-Star Admirals and Generals and Former Secretary of the Army, praising Gov. Phil Scott’s decision not to deploy the Vermont National Guard: “Recent requests by the federal government to activate National Guard forces around the country in support of immigration enforcement operations represent a troubling blurring of lines between civilian law enforcement and military responsibilities. By rejecting the Department of Defense’s request to activate the Vermont Army National Guard as an inappropriate use of military resources, you stood up for the security of Vermonters and the healthy civil-military relationship envisioned by our nation’s founders.” [8/14/25, Source]
Retired Major General Randy E. Manner, Former Acting Vice Chief of the National Guard Bureau: “The sad thing is this is a political prop. Our young soldiers and airmen are political props.” “We should not have military on our streets, in our American cities. It is absolutely the way that dictatorships run, not democracies.” “This is unprecedented, and it would not meet the criteria for the deployment of National Guardsmen whatsoever.” [8/20/25, Source] “Soldiers are trained to eliminate threats, not to deescalate tensions or protect constitutional rights during protests. When we blur that line, we risk turning our own streets into battlefields and our citizens into potential enemies. The use of the military by this administration is in Los Angeles, Memphis, and possibly Chicago, is inappropriate, it’s dangerous, and it is a clear and present danger to the security of our nation. It is un-American.” [10/16/25, Source]
Retired Senior Military Officers and Veterans: “In a nation of law and order, not military rule, setting a precedent that allows the executive to deploy the military to any protest across the country will severely harm the military as a trusted and nonpartisan institution.” “A military that is thrust into aggressive interactions with civilians in a politicized context will, over time, inevitably lose the respect and trust that it currently has among the American people.” [9/9/25, Source, Source]
R Street Institute: “Military policing is the wrong answer for America’s cities.” [8/26/25, Source] “First, relying on military force for domestic policing raises civil liberties concerns. The presence of uniformed troops blurs the line between law enforcement and military operations, a boundary the United States has long worked to preserve. Troops are trained to neutralize threats and fight the enemy, not to prevent crime and safeguard constitutional rights. Research shows that police militarization increases the use of force and erodes public trust in the institutions meant to protect them.” [10/16/25, Source]
Gregg Nunziata, Executive Director of the Society for the Rule of Law: “Regardless of what courts ultimately say, I think this is concerning. The use of the military for domestic law enforcement has profound risks. It should be something that the federal government does as a matter of last resort and great reluctance.” [9/2/25, Source]
Megyn Kelly: Regarding President Trump’s plan to deploy the National Guard to Chicago, “You can’t just send them into random cities in support of just fighting crime. Like that you really can’t do without the invitation of a governor. So, we’re heading for an uncomfortable showdown with Governor Pritzker in Illinois.” “We can’t have Trump going in without the invitation of this governor. I’m sorry, but we can’t have it. He does not have the constitutional permission to do it.” “It very clearly is not constitutionally permissible. He cannot do it. I really hope he doesn’t do it, because I don’t want a world in which I’m siding with Governor Pritzker over President Trump. But I will if he does it, because he can’t do it legally.” [9/3/25, Source, Source]
Retired Air Force Reserve Major General F. Andrew Turley: “I think it is a misuse of the National Guard to try to use the National Guard in this fashion.” “Many members are going to shake their heads and say, ‘This is not what we’re here for, this is not what we signed up for.'” [9/4/25, Source]
Retired Four-Star U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey: “They’re disciplined, they’re responsive, but we do not want American military personnel on the streets of our cities, arresting civilians, collecting evidence or trying to do community policing. It’s ineffective, it’s against American values, it’s an outrage and we need to stand up and say that categorically.” [10/1/25, Source]
Former Governor John Kasich (R-Ohio): “I would say: ‘Here are my problems. What can you do to help me? Work with me. Don’t just shove stuff down my throat.” [10/7/25, Source]
Senator Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina): “I’m having a real struggle right now with the National Guard being deployed and masking the abject failure of leaders at the state and local level.” “I was formerly speaker of the House in North Carolina. If I thought that I needed the president to deploy troops to keep North Carolina safe, I would have considered myself a failure as a state leader.” [10/7/25, Source] “I worry about someday a Democrat president sending troops or National Guard from New York, California, Oregon, Washington state to North Carolina. I think it’s bad precedent.” “If you look at this particular issue, I don’t see how you can argue that this comports with any sort of conservative view of states’ rights.” [10/8/25, Source]
Senator Susan Collins (R-Maine): Deploying National Guard troops “works much better when the governor is in concert” with the president. “Generally, this should be a police and law enforcement action. It’s a complicated issue.” [10/8/25, Source]
Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska): “I am concerned, I am very apprehensive about the use of our military for policing and, more, the politicization that we’re seeing within the military.” “This is not the role of our military.” “We’re seeing these orders, we’re seeing a directive that is unprecedented, and it should make us all concerned.” “It’s one thing if governors ask and they say, ‘Hey, I need help.’ That’s the way we’ve handled it before.” [10/8/25, Source]
Governor Kevin Stitt (R-Oklahoma), Chairman of the National Governors Association: “We believe in the federalist system — that’s states’ rights.” “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.” “As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this.” [10/9/25, Source]
Governor Phil Scott (R-Vermont): “I don’t think our guard should be used against our own people. I don’t think the military should be used against our own people. In fact, it’s unconstitutional. Unless, of course, there’s an insurrection, much like we saw January 6 a few years ago.” [10/9/25, Source]
Karl Rove: “This ultimately I think will tend to be a loser if the question is ‘Should the president do this?’ or ‘Should he have done it?'” “On the other hand it might get him a slight improvement among the people saying—who are concerned about crime, by saying ‘Well, at least he’s taking action.’ But overall I think this is going to end up being a loser for the president.” “We saw this a little bit in Portland where the president was asked about it and he said, ‘Well, you know, I am hearing that there are fires, and riots, and lots of violence every night.’ I don’t know where he was getting that because that’s not what they’re seeing on Portland TV.” [10/11/25, Source]
Retired Major General William Enyart, 37th Adjutant General of the State of Illinois: “It is imperative that we as citizens, not just as officers, but as citizens, stand up to the overreach of the federal government today in Illinois, in California and elsewhere.” “Our National Guard members joined and served to defend our nation, to respond to natural disasters. They are not policemen. They are not political pawns. They are sons and daughters, husbands and wives. They’re teachers, farmers, mechanics, carpenters and students. They should not be treated as props for political theater.” [10/16/25, Source]
Former Governors Arne Carlson (R-Minnesota), Bill Graves (R-Kansas), Marc Racicot (R-Montana), Bill Weld (R-Massachusetts), and Christine Todd Whitman (R-New Jersey):
“Throughout our history, and notwithstanding our nation’s political, social, and geographic diversity, the federal government has rarely and only under the most extraordinary circumstances imposed military authority on the citizens of a state against the wishes of the state’s executive.”
“The president’s assertion of authority to deploy military troops on domestic soil based on his unreviewable discretion, and without the cooperation and coordination of state authorities, threatens to upset the delicate balance of state and federal authority that underlies our constitutional order.” [10/20/25, Source]
Damon Root at Reason Magazine: “The question now is whether the Supreme Court will submit to the terms of judicial surrender that have been proposed by Trump. We’ll see.” [10/21/25, Source]
Patrick G. Eddington, Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute: “Trump’s deployment of the National Guard to ‘solve’ crime in cities controlled primarily by his political opponents is a public spectacle and lawfare-based power grab, not a public safety solution.” “Even if Trump were correct that violent crime is enough to warrant emergency measures, deploying National Guard units is the wrong solution. Moreover, taking these troops away from their core mission—backing up the active-duty soldiers in wartime—undermines military readiness and thus our national security.” [10/30/25, Source, Source]
Philip Allen Lacovara at The Bulwark: “The Founders would be appalled. They fought a revolution against a king who sent his troops against them to enforce his laws.” “Protests were the spark that ignited our revolution and resulted in a new nation founded by patriots who were committed to establishing a government where the people would reign and military force would not be used against them. . . . [They] would never agree that a few violent incidents would provide a basis for the national government to set about ‘calling forth the militia.'” [11/7/25, Source]
John W. Whitehead, President of The Rutherford Institute: “The President’s attempt to turn the National Guard into a standing army on American soil—deploying troops against the American people—is one of the abuses of power the Constitution was written to restrain.” “Each time the President treats ordinary protest as rebellion and sends soldiers to enforce so-called ‘order’ in our cities, he’s not defending the nation—he’s dismantling the very freedoms that define it, all the while betraying the Constitution.” [11/10/25, Source]
Richard Bernstein, Charter Member of the Society for the Rule of Law Institute and Former Clerk for Justice Antonin Scalia: “If the federal government’s interpretation of § 12406(3) prevails, get ready for a future Democratic President frequently to federalize and deploy National Guard units as a domestic Army–carrying military weapons and in military uniforms–to enforce environmental statutes, civil rights statutes, various federal statutes that might apply to conservative protesters near abortion clinics and elsewhere, and more. Our citizens and our prized National Guard members deserve better than that. The Supreme Court should put a stop now to the recurring militarization of federal law enforcement—that Congress has not authorized–before it becomes a permanent and irretrievable feature of the American experience.” [11/17/25, Source]