Unrest in Minnesota: What the Insurrection Act Is and Why Trump Is Threatening to Use It

Trump’s threat has revived attention on a law that has been rarely used in modern times and is often misunderstood even by experts. To understand the stakes, it’s important to explore what the Insurrection Act actually is, how it works, how presidents have used it in the past, and why its potential invocation now is generating strong debate across the political spectrum.