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You're watching the Legal Breakdown. Glenn, we have a really, really important development here. You and I have spoken at length about what happens in the event that Donald Trump asks troops or law enforcement to, uh, to carry out some, some action that's illegal or that runs counter to their oath of office. We now have the first instance where it seems like we're actually butting up against that reality. Can you explain what happened in Illinois?
Yeah, Brian, a really important development because as an old army guy myself, we are taught that we must obey lawful orders, but even more importantly, we must disobey unlawful orders, patently unlawful orders. And we have not heard any rumblings from the military that they have been disregarding or refusing to obey anything Trump has told them to do, including, you know, blowing Venezuelan boats out of international waters, which clearly violates every law known to man, domestic law, international law, and military law, or the law of war.
Well, what we now have is an attempt by Donald Trump to federalize the Illinois State National Guard. And we may have just seen our first military pushback. I want to read a quote from some brand new reporting. The governor did not receive any calls from any federal officials. A statement from Illinois Governor JB Pritzker's office read, quote, "The Illinois National Guard communicated to the Department of War, that's the Department of Defense, that the situation in Illinois does not require the use of the military and as a result, the governor opposes the deployment of the National Guard under any status." Close quote. Brian, that's huge. I'm not going to say this is a turning point, although we'll see how history records it. But, you know, remember when he unlawfully federalized the California National Guard and he refused to go through Governor Newsom's office as the law requires him to do. What happened? Well, the California National Guard was federalized and deployed to the streets of Los Angeles. It looks like Illinois is taking another approach. They're saying no. The situation doesn't warrant it. You did not go through the governor's office as the law requires and there is no factual basis to federalize the Illinois State National Guard. So, as of right now, and these are rapidly developing facts and circumstances, as of right now, it looks like we have our first significant military pushback and we'll see, you know, what happens moving forward.
Glenn, what happens practically speaking? Like, I understand that you and I can talk about, okay, you can, you know, disobey, uh, an unlawful order, but it, it's easy to say that from where we sit, from behind computer screens, whatever it may be. When you're like, practically speaking, when you're faced with the prospect of following an illegal order that was inherently given to you by somebody higher up, isn't it more difficult to just say no to that person than we're kind of giving them credit for? So what happens like in these real-life scenarios where they actually are given an unconstitutional, illegal, or unlawful order by somebody who's their superior. I'm assuming it's not just that easy to disregard that order. And so what happens in these instances?
So, first of all, I was an army JAG and part of my responsibilities included not only prosecuting court-martial cases when soldiers would violate the law, um, whether they were military offenses or civilian-type offenses, you know, murder, rape, theft, those are civilian-type offenses. And, um, disobeying a lawful order, you know, going AWOL, absent without leave, you know, there were sort of, um, uniquely military offenses, too. But the other thing I did was I gave commanders advice on, for example, what orders are lawful and what orders are not lawful. And now to answer your question, it's not easy. It's not easy for a military member who is trained to obey the commands, the orders given by their superiors. It's not easy for them to say, you know, captain, major, colonel, general, I cannot comply with that order because it's not lawful. But here's the thing, Brian. Nobody said military service was easy. Nobody said it was going to be easy to support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and especially domestic. But nothing is more important than that oath every single member of the military takes. So whereas it might be hard, nothing, especially at, at this moment in our nation's history, nothing could be more important than service members obeying the laws and standing up, um, in the event there is an unlawful order given.
Now, I want to talk about what's happening in Chicago right now because we've already seen that an analogous, uh, situation when he deployed these troops in Los Angeles, that was shut down by a judge because, um, his deployment didn't satisfy any of the three thresholds that needed to be met, which is that there was, uh, an, an insurrection or rebellion. There was no invasion. There was no failure of the local government to be able to effectuate its laws. The same thing happened in Oregon where we just had a judge, uh, in Oregon block Trump's deployment there, because again, these three thresholds, none of those were met. And so I'm assuming he's going to try and do the same thing in Chicago here and claim that there was some failure of the local government to be able to effectuate its laws or that there was some invasion or insurrection or rebellion there. We, we've seen in instance after instance that Trump's not able to meet this bar. And so, and so what happens next as far as Chicago's is concerned and, and I guess moreover beyond that, what happens to the people that he tries to deploy there knowing that there's no basis to do so?
All good questions and none of it has a clear answer. I assume what Donald Trump will do is he will either send a message, a missive, a threat to Illinois, to the governor and to the, uh, National Guard, the state National Guard, that you better do this now or there's going to be hell to pay. I hope Illinois, uh, stands strong and refuses to give in to Donald Trump's lawlessness, be bullied into changing course now that they've taken a stand. Um, and then the next thing Donald Trump could perhaps do is just go ahead and send, you know, actual military troops, army, Air Force, you know, Navy, Marines, uh, into Chicago, into Illinois, which, you know, would also inspire instant legal challenges.
And let's talk about what we are facing right now. Here's the backdrop against which this battle in Illinois is being fought and is unfolding. After the judge issued a temporary restraining order in Portland, Oregon, a Trump-appointed judge, I might add, because the judge concluded that Donald Trump's actions are untethered to facts, to reality. What did Donald Trump do? He ordered the California National Guard, which is still apparently federalized, to go to Portland. I mean, if that is not a direct violation of probably the rights of the California National Guard, but even setting that aside, it clearly violates in substance and in spirit the temporary restraining order that the federal judge in Oregon just issued. You know, this makes Donald Trump, you know, we've heard of serial killers, a serial violator of the Constitution and of court orders. You know, it seems like he's trying to bring our American crisis to a head, but quick. And I don't think any of this will serve him well, particularly against another important backdrop, Brian, when he and Pete Hegseth addressed all of the military's commanders and treated them like they were, you know, middle school students who knew nothing about military service, who knew nothing about the oath that they take of loyalty to the Constitution, not to a tyrant, a dictator, or an autocrat. I actually think that may have galvanized the military against Donald Trump's lawlessness because it was on full display that Donald Trump is completely unfit to be commander-in-chief of the armed forces. When he tells the military leadership things like, "I want you to use American cities as military training grounds." What does that mean? The military trains to fight and win wars and kill the enemy in the process. And Donald Trump told those military commanders, "That's what I want you to do in American cities," and he added that the American people are the enemy from within. It doesn't surprise me that right after that horrific address to the troops, we now have for the first time some military faction, the Illinois State National Guard, standing up, pushing back, and apparently telling Donald Trump and his Secretary of Defense, "No."
Well, look, this isn't, uh, out of character for Trump. We learned from his former Secretary of Defense, Mark Esper, in his first term that he wanted to shoot protesters in the leg. These are people exercising their First Amendment rights. And so this is just the natural progression for someone who views himself as a wartime president. But the enemy, as far as Trump is concerned, is Americans. And like, you know, I, I mean that through the looking glass is the only thing I can say as far as that's concerned. This is obviously a continuing, a story that's continuing to develop. So for those who are watching, if you want to follow along, please make sure to subscribe. The links to both of our channels are right here on the screen. Great way to support our work. It is completely free and a great way to support independent media. So again, those links are right here on the screen. If you haven't yet subscribed, please go ahead and subscribe. I'm Brian Taylor Cohen. And I'm Glenn Kirschner. You're watching the Legal Breakdown. [Music]