Trump Doesn't 'think There’s Any Reason Right Now’ To Invoke Insurrection Act

President Donald Trump said Friday that he doesn’t see a “reason right now” to invoke the Insurrection Act.

But he could still change his mind.

“It’s been used a lot, and if I needed it, I’d use it,” Trump told reporters as he departed the White House for Mar-a-Lago. “It’s very powerful.”

Trump’s remarks come after he threatened Thursday to use the Insurrection Act to send the military into Minneapolis amid widespread protests over an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent’s fatal shooting of Renee Good.

Trump would be the first president to invoke the law since George H. W. Bush in 1992 when he sent troops to quell riots in Los Angeles in coordination with the California governor.

Minnesota has become the epicenter of the national outcry over the administration’s aggressive deportations agenda, and state and local officials have clashed with the federal government over the continued presence of federal agents in the state and the investigation into Good’s killing.

Trump over the last year has repeatedly threatened to use the Insurrection Act, an 1807 law that gives the president emergency powers to deploy troops on U.S. soil to quell an insurrection. The president views the tool as the epitome of executive power and floated its invocation last fall when protests at a federal ICE field office in South Portland captured his attention.

White House officials have used phrases including “violent insurrection” and “insurrectionist” to describe the scene in Minneapolis, and key Trump allies have increasingly urged the president to make the move.

“Let’s just roll and see who’s got the political will, and see who’s tougher, and see who’s more focused and more determined, and has more cussedness to it,” said Steve Bannon, the former chief White House strategist. “Mass deportations now. Insurrection Act first. Troops second. Mass deportations third.”