Megyn Kelly Says Trump Lacks Authority to Send Troops to Chicago
On her SiriusXM show, the broadcaster — long seen as a Trump ally — said the president ‘can’t do it legally’ without state consent
Megyn Kelly, a prominent conservative media figure who has been friendly to former President Donald Trump, said Wednesday that Trump does not have constitutional authority to unilaterally dispatch federal troops to Chicago without the consent of Illinois’ governor.
Speaking on her SiriusXM program, Kelly rejected a suggestion by Trump this week that federal soldiers could be sent to the city to address violent crime, saying bluntly: “It very clearly is not constitutionally permissible. He cannot do it.” Kelly named Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker and said she hoped the former president would step back from any plan to deploy troops, adding that she would side with the governor over the president if necessary because of legal constraints.
Kelly said she sympathized with Chicago residents but would not abandon her view of the constitutional limits on presidential power. “So we can’t have Trump going in without the invitation of this governor. I’m sorry, but we can’t have it. He does not have the constitutional permission to do it,” she told listeners.
Kelly’s comments mark a notable public break from a frequent media booster of Trump, underscoring legal questions that have followed the former president’s suggestion that federal troops could be used in the city. Federal deployment of active-duty military forces for domestic law-enforcement duties is generally constrained by statutes and long-standing policy. The Insurrection Act provides specific, limited circumstances under which the president may order troops into states without a governor’s consent, and the Posse Comitatus Act restricts the use of the military for ordinary law-enforcement functions.
Governors commonly activate state National Guard units to assist with public safety, or request federal assistance through established channels. Legal scholars and administration officials have previously noted that sending active-duty troops to perform routine policing duties would require a narrow legal justification or explicit statutory authority.
Kelly’s remarks came as Chicago continues to confront high-profile violent incidents that have driven renewed political debate over crime, policing and federal intervention. Trump’s proposal to send soldiers to the city drew immediate attention from elected officials and legal observers, raising questions about how and whether a president could lawfully bypass state leadership.
Kelly, a former Fox News primetime anchor who now hosts a program on SiriusXM, has been a high-visibility conservative voice in recent years. Her public disagreement with Trump about the legality of deploying federal forces highlights tensions between political rhetoric about addressing crime and the constitutional and statutory limits on presidential power.
The debate over federal involvement in Chicago’s policing comes as national leaders weigh responses to crime in major cities. Legal experts say that any move to send active-duty troops into a municipality without state approval would almost certainly face immediate legal and political challenges. Kelly’s insistence that the president “can’t do it legally” reflects one conservative commentator’s view of those constraints and signals that questions about legality cut across political lines.