President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Riot Act to ship within the U.S. navy as tensions intensify in Minneapolis following a second taking pictures in per week involving a federal officer amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations within the metropolis.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota do not obey the legislation and cease the skilled agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who’re solely making an attempt to do their job, I’ll institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have carried out earlier than me, and shortly put an finish to the travesty that’s happening in that after nice State,” Trump wrote in a social media publish.
President Donald Trump speaks throughout an interview with Reuters within the Oval Workplace within the White Home in Washington, January 14, 2026.
Evelyn Hockstein/Reuters
On Wednesday evening, Deputy Lawyer Normal Todd Blanche mentioned Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, each Democrats, wanted to be stopped from “terrorism.”
“Minnesota riot is a direct results of a FAILED governor and a TERRIBLE mayor encouraging violence in opposition to legislation enforcement. It is disgusting,” Blanche posted on X. “Walz and Frey — I am centered on stopping YOU out of your terrorism by no matter means crucial. This isn’t a menace. It is a promise.”
ABC Information has reached out to Walz and Frey’s places of work for touch upon Blanche’s assertion.
Deputy Lawyer Normal Todd Blanche attends a information convention, November 19, 2025 in Washington.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Pictures
The deputy legal professional common’s blunt publish got here after Walz earlier on Wednesday night had issued a pointy rebuke of the federal authorities’s legislation enforcement presence after a federal officer shot an individual who they mentioned had fled a visitors cease after which, together with two different individuals, started attacking the officer.
The taking pictures got here one week after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mom, was fatally shot by an ICE agent. The Division of Homeland Safety has mentioned that Good was allegedly making an attempt to run over legislation enforcement officers, a declare disputed by native officers.
“It’s a marketing campaign of organized brutality in opposition to the individuals of Minnesota by our personal federal authorities,” Walz mentioned in an deal with on Wednesday. He urged residents to “protest loudly, urgently, but additionally peacefully.”
Frey, who has referred to as on ICE to “get the f— out” of Minneapolis, mentioned on Wednesday “the state of affairs we’re seeing in our metropolis isn’t sustainable.”
Minneapolis and Minnesota State police guard a fringe following a taking pictures incident with federal brokers, January 14, 2026 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
Scott Olson/Getty Pictures
Trump previously threatened to invoke the 1807 Riot Act final summer season when protests had been unfolding in Los Angeles over the administration’s immigration crackdown and deployment of the Nationwide Guard.
The legislation, which authorizes the usage of the navy on U.S. soil for sure functions, hasn’t been enacted for many years. It was final carried out was in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush throughout the Los Angeles riots on the request of the governor. It hasn’t been used with out coordination with a governor because the Nineteen Sixties.
General, the Riot Act has been utilized in response to 30 crises over its historical past, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, together with by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy to desegregate faculties after the Supreme Court docket’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Schooling.
The Riot Act states, partially: “Each time there may be an riot in any State in opposition to its authorities, the President could, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature can’t be convened, name into Federal service such of the militia of the opposite States, within the quantity requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers essential to suppress the riot.”
