AGENCIES /WASHINGTON
US President Donald Trump has threatened to use the military to end “the riots and lawlessness” that have broken out across the United States following the death of a black man in police custody, prompting harsh criticism from political opponents including likely presidential nominee Joe Biden, who expressed concern “for the very soul of our country.”
In a nationally televised address in the White House Rose Garden, the president warned that “if a city or state refuses to take the actions 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 comment was an apparent reference to the 1807 Insurrection Act, which allows presidents to quell lawlessness during emergencies. The law was most recently used in 1992 amid rioting in Los Angeles after another African-American man, Rodney King, was beaten by police.
Trump said he was “mobilizing all available federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting, to end the destruction and arson, and to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans, including your Second Amendment rights.” The Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution protects the rights of all American citizens to own firearms.