Will Trump invoke the Insurrection Act?

The Insurrection Act is a rare and politically explosive tool, so the baseline likelihood is low even for a president who is unusually willing to stretch executive power. For Trump specifically, the main reason this is not a single-digit possibility is that he has repeatedly signaled openness to using federal force domestically, especially around immigration enforcement, civil disorder, and protests. If there is a sustained period of large-scale unrest, a border-related confrontation, or violent disturbances that he can frame as a breakdown of public order, the threshold for invocation could be met quickly enough for him to act.

At the same time, invocation is still a high-cost move. It would trigger immediate legal challenges, internal resistance from the Pentagon and Justice Department, and intense political backlash, all of which raise the odds that he will prefer alternatives like federalized National Guard deployments, emergency declarations, or aggressive executive-branch maneuvering short of the Insurrection Act. The more normal and contained the domestic environment is, the more the Act remains an unnecessary escalation rather than a useful governing tool. That makes this a contingent event dependent on a genuine crisis, not just on Trump's temperament.

Relative to the market price of 16%, I think the market is somewhat underestimating the chance because it may be anchoring too heavily on the historical rarity of the statute. Historical rarity matters, but Trump is not a typical president, and the combination of his rhetoric, willingness to test norms, and possible incentives to militarize domestic conflict creates a meaningfully higher tail risk than standard precedent would suggest. Still, 23% is not a prediction of likely invocation in ordinary circumstances; it is a judgment that the path to invocation is plausible enough, and the downside incentives to choose it are strong enough, to justify a material premium over the current price.