Originally published 2020-06-02.
On the evening of 1 June 2020, a week after George Floyd was killed by a Minneapolis police officer, President Donald Trump spoke in the White House Rose Garden and threatened to send the US military into American cities. He urged state governors to call out the National Guard in large numbers, and said that if any city or state refused to act, he would “deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them.”
The threat was never carried out in the way it was framed. Active-duty troops were moved to bases near Washington, but they were not sent into the city, and the Insurrection Act, the law a president would need to use regular forces for policing, was not invoked. Here is what Trump said, what happened outside the White House while he was speaking, and why the episode still matters.
What Trump announced in the Rose Garden
Trump opened by calling Floyd’s death a tragedy and saying Americans were right to be angry. He then turned to the unrest that had followed in many cities, describing the looting and arson as domestic terrorism and blaming organised groups, singling out Antifa, which he had said a day earlier he would designate as a terrorist organisation. There is no legal mechanism for designating a domestic movement in that way, and none was created.
The core of the speech was a demand that governors use the National Guard in numbers large enough to take firm control of the streets. If they would not, he said, he would send in the military himself. For Washington, D.C., where the president has more direct authority, he said he was sending thousands of heavily armed soldiers and law enforcement officers to stop rioting, looting and vandalism.
He also referred to damage in the capital the previous night, including graffiti on national memorials and a fire at St John’s Church, the small Episcopal church across Lafayette Square that presidents have attended since James Madison.
What was happening outside: Lafayette Square
As Trump prepared to speak, federal officers and police began clearing peaceful protesters from Lafayette Square and nearby H Street, at around 6:28 p.m., ahead of a 7 p.m. curfew and before dispersal warnings had been fully given. Officers used pepper balls and tear-gas-type irritants, stun grenades, batons and, by many accounts, rubber projectiles. The loud bangs heard near the White House during the speech came from that operation.
Shortly afterwards Trump walked across the cleared square to St John’s and posed outside it holding a Bible, a photo opportunity that drew criticism from church leaders and military figures. Photographer Doug Mills of The New York Times captured the walk.
.@realDonaldTrump walks to the Historic St. John’s Church was damaged during a night of unrest near the White House. pic.twitter.com/La6TuoYyBJ
— Doug Mills (@dougmillsnyt) June 1, 2020
The church damage was smaller than the speech implied. The fire had been set in the basement nursery of the parish house next to the church on 31 May and was put out quickly, with damage limited to that room.
A June 2021 report by the Interior Department’s Inspector General found that the US Park Police had planned to clear the area to install anti-climb fencing before they knew of the president’s walk, and judged the plan lawful. It also found that the Secret Service moved on protesters before Park Police had issued warnings, and it did not assess whether doing it at that moment was wise.
(The video originally embedded here is no longer available on YouTube.)
Could a president really send troops into US cities?
Normally, the Posse Comitatus Act bars federal troops from acting as domestic police. The main exception is the Insurrection Act, a law dating back to 1807, which lets a president use the armed forces to suppress insurrection or enforce federal law when states cannot or will not. It was last used in 1992, during the Los Angeles riots, at the request of California’s governor.
The National Guard is different. Governors control their own Guard units and can deploy them in their states for emergencies. Washington, D.C. has no governor, so its Guard answers to the president. That is why Trump could act much more directly in the capital than elsewhere.
Inside the administration the idea of invoking the Insurrection Act was debated on 1 June. Vice President Mike Pence reportedly favoured it, while Attorney General William Barr, Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper opposed it.
What actually happened next
About 5,400 National Guard members from D.C. and 11 states were sent to Washington, backed by roughly 1,700 active-duty troops held at bases outside the city. Several governors, including those of Virginia, New York, Pennsylvania and Delaware, declined requests to send Guard troops to the capital.
On 3 June Esper said publicly that active-duty forces should be used for law enforcement only as a last resort, adding: “We are not in one of those situations now.” Milley later apologised for appearing in uniform on the walk to the church, saying it created a perception of the military being involved in domestic politics. The active-duty troops were sent home within days.
Across the country, more than 30 states and D.C. activated over 62,000 Guard personnel, under their own governors. Curfews were imposed in at least 200 cities by 3 June.
The background: George Floyd and the protests
Floyd, a 46-year-old Black man, died on 25 May 2020 after officer Derek Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes while he lay handcuffed on the ground. All four officers involved were fired the next day once bystander video spread. Chauvin was charged on 29 May with third-degree murder and manslaughter, and on 3 June the charge was raised to second-degree murder, while the other three officers were charged with aiding and abetting.
Protests began in Minneapolis and quickly spread. Most were peaceful, but there was serious rioting in some places, and in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul area more than 1,500 businesses were damaged or destroyed. By mid-June demonstrations had taken place in over 2,000 US cities and more than 60 countries, often described as the biggest racial-justice protests in the US since the civil rights era.
In April 2021 a jury convicted Chauvin of murder and manslaughter, and he was sentenced to 22.5 years. He and the other three officers also received federal prison sentences for civil-rights violations.
Why the episode still matters
The Rose Garden speech raised a question Americans had rarely had to consider: how far a president can go in using the military at home. Military leaders’ public pushback, and governors’ refusals to send troops, showed that the limits were partly legal and partly political. The debate over the Insurrection Act and federal deployments in cities has come back repeatedly since 2020, so understanding what was threatened, and what actually happened, helps put later arguments in context.
- Threatened: regular military deployments to any state that failed to restore order.
- Done: a large National Guard presence in D.C., active-duty troops staged nearby, and the forcible clearing of Lafayette Square.
- Not done: invoking the Insurrection Act or sending active-duty forces into any state against a governor’s wishes.
Sources: Wikipedia: Donald Trump photo op at St. John’s Church; Wikipedia: Murder of George Floyd. Embedded photo post: Doug Mills, The New York Times.
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