Republican lawmakers are urging President Donald Trump to invoke a federal insurrection law to arrest Gov. Tim Walz after the Democrat threatened to use Minnesota’s National Guard to thwart immigration enforcement in his state.
“Invoke the Insurrection Act,” Rep. Mary Miller, (R-IL) wrote in a post on X this week. “Arrest Tim Walz.”
Requests for Trump to invoke the law, which gives a president power to arrest suspects obstructing federal law enforcement, come on the heels of Walz’s suggestion that he may use the national guard to prevent Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) from rounding up illegal aliens in Minnesota.
Rep. Miller reposted Walz’s comments at a news conference Wednesday.
“I have orders to prepare the Minnesota National Guard,” Walz warned. “We have soldiers in training and prepared to be deployed if necessary. I remind you, a warning order is a heads up for folks. And these National Guard troops are our National Guard troops.”
The governor’s threats follow the shooting Wednesday by a federal law enforcement officer of 37-year-old Renee Nicole Good when she allegedly tried to run over the agent on a snow-covered street in metropolitan Minneapolis.
“We do not need any further help from the federal government,” Walz also old reporters. “To Donald Trump and Kristi Noem, you’ve done enough. I’ve issued a warning order to prepare the Minnesota National Guard.”
Minnesota has a law that allows the governor to use the national guard for “defense or relief of the state, the enforcement of the law, [or] the protection of persons” in the state, Fox News reported.
Other Republican lawmakers, including Rep. Derrick Van Orden, (R-WI), said in the Fox report that Walz was essentially threatening a civil war.
“The last time they did that was at Fort Sumter and it started the Civil War,” Van Orden told Fox, referring to the 1861 military assault that kicked off the deadliest conflict in U.S. history, taking an estimated 700,000 lives.
The lawmaker continued, “If a state militia acts against the federal government that is actually a civil war. So that guy needs to shut his damn mouth now because he is calling for civil war. Walz is an absolute moron.”
Rep. Rich McCormick, R-(GA) echoed Miller and Van Orden’s observations, saying Walz was threatening to “bring out a military force to oppose a federal armed force.”
Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) responded to Walz with a civics lesson that evoked the Constitution.
She wrote in a post on X Thursday:
“Someone remind him: Donald Trump is the Commander in Chief. And federal authority supersedes state authority. That’s not an opinion, that’s the Constitution.”
“What Walz is threatening has a name: insurrection,” Mace explained, adding, “Mr. President, the law is on your side. Use it.”
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more