President Donald Trump has claimed he could send the Navy, Air Force, and Marines into U.S. cities to do “whatever I want” and the courts would not stop him.

As tensions escalate over the administration’s deployment of the National Guard, Trump warned that he could “routinely” invoke the Insurrection Act to bypass the legal system if he wanted to use all arms of the military against his own citizens.

“If I want to enact a certain Act, I’m allowed to do it,” he said.

“We haven’t chosen to do that because we’re doing very well without it, but I’d be allowed to do that, you know that, right? And the courts wouldn’t get involved. Nobody would get involved, and I could send the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. I could send anybody I wanted.”

The comments represent a dramatic escalation by

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