Tensions escalate as Trump threatens Insurrection Act, Blanche accuses Minnesota governor of ‘terrorism’
.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with oil and gas executives in the East Room of the White House on January 9, 2026 in Washington, DC. Alex Wong/Getty Images
(MINNEAPOLIS) — President Donald Trump on Thursday threatened to invoke the Insurrection Act to send in the U.S. military as tensions intensify in Minneapolis following a second shooting in a week involving a federal officer amid Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations in the city.
“If the corrupt politicians of Minnesota don’t obey the law and stop the professional agitators and insurrectionists from attacking the Patriots of I.C.E., who are only trying to do their job, I will institute the INSURRECTION ACT, which many Presidents have done before me, and quickly put an end to the travesty that is taking place in that once great State,” Trump wrote in a social media post.
On Wednesday night, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz and Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, both Democrats, needed to be stopped from “terrorism.”
“Minnesota insurrection is a direct result of a FAILED governor and a TERRIBLE mayor encouraging violence against law enforcement. It’s disgusting,” Blanche posted on X. “Walz and Frey — I’m focused on stopping YOU from your terrorism by whatever means necessary. This is not a threat. It’s a promise.”
ABC News has reached out to Walz and Frey’s offices for comment on Blanche’s statement.
The deputy attorney general’s blunt post came after Walz earlier on Wednesday evening had issued a sharp rebuke of the federal government’s law enforcement presence after a federal officer shot a person who they said had fled a traffic stop and then, along with two other people, began attacking the officer.
The shooting came one week after Renee Good, a 37-year-old mother, was fatally shot by an ICE agent. The Department of Homeland Security has said that Good was allegedly attempting to run over law enforcement officers, a claim disputed by local officials.
“It’s a campaign of organized brutality against the people of Minnesota by our own federal government,” Walz said in an address on Wednesday. He urged residents to “protest loudly, urgently, but also peacefully.”
Frey, who has called on ICE to “get the f— out” of Minneapolis, said on Wednesday “the situation we are seeing in our city is not sustainable.”
Trump previously threatened to invoke the 1807 Insurrection Act last summer when protests were unfolding in Los Angeles over the administration’s immigration crackdown and deployment of the National Guard.
The law, which authorizes the use of the military on U.S. soil for certain purposes, hasn’t been enacted for decades. It was last implemented was in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush during the Los Angeles riots following the murder of Rodney King at the request of the governor. It hasn’t been used without coordination with a governor since the 1960s.
Overall, the Insurrection Act has been used in response to 30 crises over its history, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, including by Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy to desegregate schools after the Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Brown v. Board of Education.
The Insurrection Act states, in part: “Whenever there is an insurrection in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.”
A view of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts which was recently renamed The Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the performing arts in Washington, DC on December 29, 2025. (Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — President Donald Trump’s plan for a “Complete Rebuilding” of the Kennedy Center in Washington has sparked a legal debate over whether he — or Congress — has the power to control the high-profile cultural institution.
The battle began in December, when Trump’s name was added to the building’s facade — above the existing signage that reads “The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts” — following a unanimous vote by Trump’s hand-picked board of center trustees.
It escalated recently, when Trump announced it would close in July for two years — to make major renovations he said were necessary.
Some members of Congress are pushing back, including in court, alleging Trump’s actions are unlawful and should be reversed.
What does the law say? Here’s a closer look at what the law and history say on the question:
Since Congress created the cultural institution in a federal statute, designating it as a living memorial in 1964 shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s death and then through its expansion in the 2010s, it has been operated by both the executive and legislative branches — contributing to the legal debate.
While the executive branch oversees the appointments of the center’s board of trustees, Congress has the ultimate say on what money gets appropriated and what projects get approved.
The House Appropriations subcommittee overseeing the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies grants the center’s board the power to act on any proposed and approved changes.
According to the top Democrat on the subcommittee, Rep. Chellie Pingree, the panel has historically controlled all funding, project management and security, separate from the executive branch or what is voted on by the center’s trustees.
Congress has proposed and authorized expansive construction projects, such as the REACH expansion adjacent to the Kennedy Center, designed for artist collaboration, to smaller standard year-to-year maintenance costs.
When Trump’s signature legislation passed in July, known as the “One Big Beautiful Bill,” it circumvented the subcommittee, instead directly appropriating $256,657,000 for “necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures of the building.”
In a statement, the Kennedy Center’s new president, Richard Grenell, a Trump appointee, said, “I am grateful for President Trump’s visionary leadership. I am also grateful to Congress for appropriating an historic $257M to finally address decades of deferred maintenance and repairs at the Trump Kennedy Center.”
The Trump administration has suggested these already appropriated funds will cover any costs of his proposed major renovation.
“It desperately needs this renovation and temporarily closing the center just makes sense — it will enable us to better invest our resources, think bigger and make the historic renovations more comprehensive,” Grenell said. “It also means we will be finished faster.”
Limits on the president’s power? Georgetown University law professor David Super told ABC News that even though the money for those changes is already appropriated by Congress, Trump and his administration do not have total freedom to make decisions.
“The Constitution says that no money shall be drawn for the Treasury except in accordance with an appropriation passed by Congress,” Super said. “He can spend that money for any of the purposes Congress provided it for, and that includes deferred maintenance, repair, restoration, renovation. It does not allow him to rebuild it.”
While Trump has suggested major renovations, no plans have been officially released or shared with the congressional subcommittee overseeing the center. During an Oval Office photo, Trump said the steel would be “fully exposed” but not removed.
“I’m not ripping it down. I’ll be using the steel,” he said. “So, we’re using the structure. We’re using some of the marble and some of the marble comes down, but when it’s opened, it’ll be brand new and really beautiful. It’ll be at the highest level.”
Super said if those renovations align with the language of the law Congress has passed, it is within Trump’s legal right both as president — and chair of the Kennedy Center’s board — to go forward. If the renovations go beyond what the law spells out and allows, Super said, his moves would be unconstitutional.
“Some of his remarks about ‘maybe, they will use the marble, maybe they won’t’, imply that he’s planning something much more than renovation or repair,” Super said. “If so, then he would be violating the language of the appropriation, and therefore the Constitution.”
When asked whether the president would keep his plan within the constraints laid out by Congress, White House spokeswoman Liz Hudston told ABC News: “While the Democrats neglected the Trump-Kennedy Center for years, President Trump immediately stepped up to rescue and revitalize the institution.”
Hudston also included some intended uses of the funds for maintenance, including “repairing and, where necessary, replacing elements on the exterior of the building,” and “work to bring the Trump-Kennedy Center into compliance with current life safety codes and security standard.”
So far, there are no lawsuits alleging Trump’s proposed renovations to the center are illegal.
The renaming The center’s controversial renaming presents another legal question.
When the building was designated a living memorial in 1964, Congress wrote in explicit language on how the center should be named and operated.
U.S. Public Law 88-260 dictates the U.S. must “be held to designate or refer to such Center as the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
“They really left very little to the imagination, and detailed what they wanted the Kennedy Center to be,” Super said, adding, “there are many things Congress creates that it doesn’t name, and that’s left to the president to name, but here is a law saying it shall be known as the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
Super said that regardless of what the board of trustees decides, the name will legally remain as written in the statute.
“And as a duly passed law of Congress, this binds you, it binds me, and it binds the president,” Super said. “The money that the president says he wants to spend on renovating the Kennedy Center is money that was appropriated for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, not for the Trump-Kennedy Center. So, if he in fact uses that money, he is acknowledging that its name did not change.”
A former Kennedy Center trustee, Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty, has filed a lawsuit to stop Trump and the board of trustees from changing the Kennedy Center’s name and wants Trump’s name removed.
U.S. Code § 76j states that “the Board shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.”
“Because Congress named the center by statute, changing the Kennedy Center’s name requires an act of Congress,” Beatty’s lawsuit said. “But on December 18 and 19, 2025 — in scenes more reminiscent of authoritarian regimes than the American republic — the sitting President and his handpicked loyalists renamed this storied center after President Trump.”
Pingree said her subcommittee has been told little about Trump’s plans and that she had instead learned about his proposed changes through social media.
“What’s going to happen now?” Pingree told ABC News, adding,” he tore down the East Wing. Does this mean he thinks he’s going to tear down the Kennedy Center and just rebuild it as a monument to himself?”
With lawmakers beginning discussions on funding for 2027, Pingree said she is working with her Republican counterpart to demand information.
“We will certainly say to them, we’re not going to allocate any money in this cycle until you give us more information about what you’re doing,” Pingree said.
“If that money is currently being used just to keep the place afloat because ticket sales are off and performers won’t perform, then it’s not going to go to the desperately needed. I believe there are some really important things that need to be done to that building,” she said.
President Donald Trump speaks as Vice President JD Vance listens in the Oval Office of the White House, March 16, 2026, in Washington. (Alex Wong/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — The Senate is expected to take up the SAVE America Act this week after President Donald Trump earlier this month thrust the bill into focus with a threat to withhold his signature on all other legislation until the GOP voting reform bill hits his desk.
Debate on the bill could kick off in the Senate as soon as Tuesday, but on Monday the president seemed doubtful that it would get to his desk.
“I think it’s imperative that it gets done. I’m not sure it is,” Trump said when asked about the bill’s outlook.
“I hope [Senate Majority Leader] John Thune can get it across the line. He’s trying. I mean, he told me this morning. I spoke to him, he’s trying,” Trump said. “I think it’ll be a very, very bad thing for our country if they don’t. We’re just asking for basic things,” Trump said.
Things could get quite heated on the floor, but ultimately the legislation, despite having a passionate base of GOP supporters, will almost certainly fail.
Here’s a look at what to know about this bill as it takes center stage this week:
What is the SAVE America Act?
The SAVE America Act is a Republican-led election reform bill that would require photo ID at polling places and mandate that states obtain proof of citizenship before registering a person to vote in a federal election.
Trump has said that passing the SAVE America Act is a top priority. The president has also tacked additional provisions onto the list of things he would like to see in the law: restricting mail-in ballots, banning transgender women from playing in women’s sports and gender-affirming surgeries for minors.
Will the bill the Senate is considering include Trump’s additional demands?
The Senate is expected to consider amendments to the SAVE America Act aimed at adding Trump’s demands. But those amendments would need 60 votes to pass, and are not expected to get enough support to ultimately be tacked onto the bill.
What do Democrats think of the bill?
Senate Democrats have been clear they intend to oppose this legislation, which they say would make it more difficult for millions of Americans to vote.
During a press call on Sunday, Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer called the bill “one of the most despicable pieces of legislation I’ve come across in the many years I’ve been a legislator.”
Democrats have been quick to underscore that the bill does more than require voters to show ID at the polling place. They say it amounts to an effort to nationalize elections and could lead to many people being turned away at their polling place.
What can be expected on the Senate floor this week?
The Senate is expected to hold a potentially lengthy debate on the floor this week as they consider the bill.
It will be a contentious couple of days during which the floor will be open for nearly unlimited debate on the bill. This debate could stretch into this weekend, but the result is already baked. When lawmakers run out of steam to keep debating, there will be a vote to move forward with the bill that requires 60 votes to advance. Democrats will almost certainly block it, and the bill will fail.
Will the SAVE America Act pass?
It is highly unlikely that the SAVE America Act will pass the Senate.
Though there’s going to be a lot of debate on the bill, the Senate rules that require 60 votes to pass most legislative matters will remain intact. That means that even if every Senate Republican were to cast a vote in favor of this legislation, at least seven Democrats would need to support it for it to pass.
Democrats have vowed to block the bill. Without their support, it will fail.
Could senators change the rules?
Yes, they could. But they won’t.
The Senate filibuster rule requires 60 votes to pass most legislative matters into law. Senators have the ability to change their rules with a simple majority of votes, and they’ve faced considerable pressure from Trump and others to do so.
But Thune has been consistent throughout his time as party leader about the lack of support within the Republican conference to change the Senate’s rules. Thune is a supporter of the Senate filibuster, and he has been clear there are not the votes to change the filibuster rule.
Senators are not expected to make modifications to the threshold of votes necessary to pass this bill. Without those changes, its hard to see how this would pass.
If the Senate fails to pass it, what happens?
Then it’s back to the drawing board.
This week’s actions amount to a good-faith effort by Senate Republicans to demonstrate that they are trying to make good on Trump’s priority. But this is largely a messaging vote unlikely to get the support it needs.
The House could take further action to try to revive the bill. But Democratic opposition in the Senate makes it unlikely that any renewed efforts will see a different outcome.
What’s less clear is whether this will be enough to back Trump off of his threat to withhold his signature on all other bills.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to reflect the elements of the House-passed bill.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance gives remarks following a roundtable discussion with local leaders and community members amid a surge of federal immigration authorities in the area, at Royalston Square on January 22, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The Trump administration has sent a reported 3,000-plus federal agents into the area, with more on the way, as they make a push to arrest undocumented immigrants in the region. (Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)
(WASHINGTON) — Vice President JD Vance took the stage for a second year in a row on Friday at the March For Life rally in Washington, D.C., where he touted the work done by the Trump administration to support the anti-abortion rights movement — but Vance also responded to criticism from some in the pro-life movement that the White House has not done enough so far to advance its agenda.
“Now I must address an elephant in the room. I’ve heard the guy over here talking about it, a fear, a fear that some of you have, that not enough progress has been made, that not enough has happened in the political arena, that we’re not going fast enough, that our politics have failed to answer the clarion call to life that this march represents and that all of us, I believe, hold in our hearts,” Vance said. “And I want you to know that I hear you, and that I understand there will inevitably be debates within this movement.”
Vance asked attendees to reflect on what has been accomplished over the past decade, adding that more actions will be taken in the coming years.
“My friends, I’d ask you to look where the Fight for Life stood just one decade ago and now look where it stands today. We have made tremendous strides over the last year, and we’re going to continue to make strides over the next three years to come. But I’m a realist. I know that there is still much road ahead to travel together,” Vance said.
Vance referenced Trump’s appointment of the three Supreme Court justices who helped overrule Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that stated that the Constitution protected the right to an abortion. Vance said that Trump’s actions led to the “most important” Supreme Court decision of his lifetime.
Vance touted some of the actions the Trump administration has taken on restricting abortion access and supporting the anti-abortion rights movement, including pardoning 23 anti-abortion rights activists about a year ago.
Although Trump did not attend the rally on Friday, he did send in a brief video message where he said he has “made unprecedented strides to protect innocent life and support the institution of the family.” Trump also reflected on appointing the Supreme Court justices who helped overrule Roe v. Wade.
“That was a big deal, and because of that, the pro-life movement won the greatest victory in its history,” Trump said of the Supreme Court decision.
The White House also released a statement from Trump reiterating his contributions to the anti-abortion rights movement.
“From the moment I returned to office as the 47th President of the United States, I have taken decisive action to protect the unborn and restore a culture that unapologetically defends the sanctity of life,” Trump said in his statement.
