The former president accused the Trump administration of pursuing “a deliberate end-run” around the law.
By Jacob Wendler
Former President Barack Obama decried the Trump administration’s deployment of military troops to American cities, saying the moves amount to “a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy.”
In an appearance on the final episode of comedian Marc Maron’s podcast, “WTF,” Obama said President Donald Trump was attempting to contravene the Posse Comitatus Act, a nearly 150-year-old law generally prohibiting the use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
“If I had sent in the National Guard into Texas and just said ... ‘I don’t care what Governor [Greg] Abbott says, I’m going to take over law enforcement because I think things are out of control,’ it is mind boggling to me how Fox News would’ve responded,” Obama said.
The former president’s comments come as the White House has pushed ahead with the deployment of troops in Chicago and Portland despite legal challenges and pushback from local leaders. A federal appeals court on Saturday allowed troops to remain in Illinois but blocked their planned deployment in Chicago, while a federal appeals court panel in Oregon seemed poised to allow a similar deployment in Portland.
“When you see an administration suggest that ordinary street crime is an insurrection or a terrorist act, that is a genuine effort to weaken how we have understood democracy and that was understood by Democrats and Republicans,” Obama said.
Trump and several administration officials — including Vice President JD Vance, senior adviser Stephen Miller and Attorney General Pam Bondi — have repeatedly accused liberal organizations of insurrection and domestic terrorism, vowing to crack down on nonprofit groups and activist networks or even invoke the Insurrection Act.
Obama, who has been increasingly outspoken about his objections to several White House moves in recent months, previously criticized the administration for throwing “the weight of the United States government behind extremist views” in the wake of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s killing.
“I think there is no doubt that a lot of the norms, civic habits, expectations, institutional guardrails that we had, that we took for granted for our democracy have been weakened deliberately,” Obama said on the episode, released Sunday. “And I don’t think they’re destroyed, but I think they have been damaged. And they’ve been systematic about it.”