Behind the Minnesota Star Tribune

Gov. Tim Walz said the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff warned him during the unrest following George Floyd’s murder that President Donald Trump could invoke the Insurrection Act if the unrest continued.

Walz also said he was warned that Trump could potentially seek to cancel elections, though presidents do not have the authority to unilaterally cancel or postpone federal elections.

Elaborating in a backstage interview with the Minnesota Star Tribune, Walz said then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs called him after a conversation in which, according to Walz, Trump had pressed him about using force against protesters.

“The president is going to potentially move federal troops in, and that is a situation that none of us want,” Walz recalled being told.

The governor connected that experience to Operation Metro Surge, saying tensions between state and federal authorities this year came dangerously close to spilling into violence. Trump publicly threatened in January to invoke the Insurrection Act in Minnesota amid protests over the federal immigration enforcement operation.
Walz said the possibility of Trump invoking the law shaped his administration’s approach to the surge.
“One of the competing things we were working against is how could we do everything possible to avoid the use of the Insurrection Act,” he said.

Walz credited Minnesotans with protesting peacefully while defending their rights and neighbors.

“Because of that,” he said, “I would argue the democracy held.”

Reporting by Sofia Barnett.

📹 Shari Gross/The Minnesota Star Tribune