Oklahoma GOP Gov Stitt critical of Trump's National Guard deployment across state lines

Oklahoma GOP Gov. Kevin Stitt is criticizing President Trump's deployment of the National Guard across state lines, saying the move violates state's rights. 

Stitt told The New York Times on Thursday, particularly, that he believes the deployment of Texas National Guard troops to Illinois is a violation of federalism and “states’ rights.”

GOP Texas Gov. Greg Abbott let Trump deploy the Texas National Guard to Chicago this week after Democratic Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker protested the president's plans for sending in the Guard.

“We believe in the federalist system – that’s states’ rights,” Stitt also said. “Oklahomans would lose their mind if Pritzker in Illinois sent troops down to Oklahoma during the Biden administration.”

Stitt said that he supports Trump’s efforts to protect U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents and ensure “law and order” in such cities as Chicago and Portland, but worried about setting a precedent with the deployment and how it could be used by a president from another party.

The governor said that Trump should have moved to federalize the troops in Illinois first.

Stitt, noted his opposition during the COVID-19 pandemic to federal mandates around vaccinations and masking under then-President Biden.

“I was surprised that Governor Abbott sent troops from Texas to Illinois,” Stitt said. “Abbott and I sued the Biden administration when the shoe was on the other foot and the Biden administration was trying to force us to vaccinate all of our soldiers and force masks across the country.”

“As a federalist believer, one governor against another governor, I don’t think that’s the right way to approach this,” he added.

A federal judge in Illinois on Thursday temporarily blocked Trump’s deployment of National Guard troops in the state for 14 days, NOTUS reported.

“I find that allowing the National Guard to deploy will only add fuel to the fire that the defendants have started,” the judge said.

Stitt’s remarks come days after Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom and Pritzker threatened to withdraw from the National Governors Association if it failed to criticize Trump’s federalization of National Guard troops against state officials' wishes.

The Oklahoma governor said that his comments represented his personal opinion, not an official statement from the NGA, because its nonprofit status exempts it from weighing in on political issues.

Stitt said he hoped more Americans would understand that “elections have consequences.” He added that that applies to both Democrats who dislike Trump and Republicans who oppose governors such as Pritzker and Newsom.

“They’re doing what they think is right for their state or their country,” Stitt said. “Let’s give the other side the benefit of the doubt.”

“I would tell the other side, let’s give President Trump the benefit of the doubt; don’t just always attack him for trying to protect these cities.”