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**OCTOBER 13, 2025**

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Two sitting Republican governors have taken the lead in criticizing President Trump’s National Guard troop deployments to cities that exhibit no signs of rebellion, invasion, or anything else that might merit hundreds of troops walking the streets of Chicago or any other city. Another group of former governors, 26 of them, has also spoken out against the president’s exercise of “unchecked power.” As the shutdown inertia continues on Capitol Hill, it’s a faint signal that some American leaders finally recognize the perils ahead.

**–Gabrielle Gurley, senior editor**

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Alexandra Buxbaum/Sipa via AP Images

Chicago Strikes Back, With an Assist from Republican Governors [link removed]

In the White House view of the world, five vibrant American cities—Washington, Los Angeles, Portland, Memphis, and Chicago—are putrid hellholes, so dangerous and crime-choked that local law enforcement needs federal backup.

Last week, President Trump sent in hundreds of Illinois and Texas National Guard members. Their mission was slightly at odds with the claim of urgently needing federal crime-fighters. As in Los Angeles, the Guard troops ended up protecting federal agents and federal buildings. But their real mission was to intimidate and to menace residents and to occupy sections of the city.

Gov. JB Pritzker (D-IL) sued [link removed] the federal government to end the occupation, citing harms to residents and businesses, the local economy, and depleted tax revenues. Last Thursday, District Court Judge April Perry ruled that the Illinois deployments violated the Tenth and Fourteenth Amendments, issued a 14-day restraining order, and labeled the Trump administration’s perception [link removed] of events “simply unreliable.”

A bipartisan group of 26 former governors, including Democrats and Republicans, filed an amicus brief [link removed] in the case. The document is a window into how governors view the unprecedented use of the military to punish certain cities for having the temerity to vote for a Democratic candidate for president.

But how do current Republican governors view this constitutional crisis? Two men stepped up with answers last week, and they were surprisingly frank. Gov. Kevin Stitt of Oklahoma echoed the sentiments in the amicus brief. “As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this,” he told

**The**

**New York Times** [link removed], adding, “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

Phil Scott of Vermont said at a press conference [link removed]: “I don’t think our Guard should be used against our own people. I don’t think the military should be used against our own people. In fact, it’s unconstitutional.” He made an exception for an insurrection, referring specifically to the events of January 6, 2021.

Their willingness to speak out against the broadly unpopular policy suggests that the pushback could grow.

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