Gov. Maura Healey said she sees President Donald Trump’s recent deployment of National Guard troops to U.S. cities as “political theater” and warned against using Massachusetts troops in the same way.
Asked Wednesday what she would do if Trump sent the guard to Massachusetts, Healey responded: “I don’t know why he would.”
“To put the guard on the streets in a way they were never intended to be used — domestically against our own citizens — that’s not what the guard is supposed to be doing. That is not the mission, nor do I think it is the mission that the good men and women of the guard signed up for,” Healey said Wednesday in downtown Boston at a discussion moderated by Bloomberg News Head of the Americas Caroline Gage.
Trump this week announced plans to send troops to Baltimore and Chicago, after already deploying units in Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. A federal judge in California ruled Tuesday that Trump’s use of Marines and National Guard members in Los Angeles violated the Posse Comitatus Act, which restricts domestic civilian law enforcement. That ruling, which the president may appeal, came in response to a lawsuit filed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom.
Healey said the Los Angeles decision “was the right order, the right ruling. It’ll get appealed.”
She argued that Trump’s focus on deploying the guard is a distraction.
“There are real emergencies in this country, and this focus on an effort, you know, dial up Chicago, whoever’s next. This is all an effort to distract and to take away attention for the things that the president and his administration are not delivering on,” she said.
Mayor Michelle Wu said she was preparing for Trump sending a deployment to the city.
“Every mayor of every major city is having to take preparations for the National Guard coming against their will,” Wu said last month.
