Fresh Air National Guard Deployment In American Cities
40 snips
Oct 9, 2025 
Nancy Youssef, a national security reporter for The Atlantic, discusses the implications of National Guard deployments in U.S. cities amid rising tensions in the Pentagon. She analyzes the potential invocation of the Insurrection Act and the mixed reactions from Guardsmen about these missions. On a lighter note, film critic Justin Chang reviews Luca Guadagnino's *After the Hunt*, praising Julia Roberts' performance while questioning the film's approach to complex themes. This conversation bridges urgent security topics with cinematic critique.
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Federalized Guards Have Limited Roles
- The president federalized National Guard troops over governors' objections to deploy them to federal sites and missions.
- That limits their operations mainly to federal property and specific escort tasks under federal control.
Rhetoric Lays Groundwork For Insurrection Act
- Stephen Miller frames urban protests as domestic terrorism and readies legal groundwork for stronger federal action.
- That rhetoric raises concerns about potential use of the Insurrection Act against cities like Portland.
Using The Insurrection Act Lowers Historical Thresholds
- The Insurrection Act gives the president wide discretion to federalize troops for insurrections, but its historic use has been rare and extraordinary.
- Lowering that threshold risks normalizing military presence on U.S. streets for far less severe events.