President Donald Trump walks away from a press briefing on July 6, 2017, his silhouette stretching across the wall behind him — a symbolic image for a politician who has long portrayed America in shadows.
For nearly ten years, Trump has described the United States as a nation spiraling into chaos — a country of lawlessness, violent decline and political collapse. It began with his bleak “American carnage” inaugural speech in 2017 and has continued through his rallies, social media posts and campaign appearances.
But in recent months, Trump hasn’t just painted that grim picture — he’s used it as justification for dramatic power grabs. He has argued that the supposed breakdown of law and order allows him to deploy the military in US cities, crack down on his critics and invoke emergency powers.
There’s just one problem: Courts keep ruling that Trump’s horror story is fiction.
Judges say the chaos Trump describes isn’t real
Despite political spin, judges across the country — including many appointed by Republicans — have reviewed Trump’s claims and found them wildly exaggerated or outright false. They’ve accused his administration of distorting evidence to manufacture national crises that simply don’t exist.
In the past week alone, federal courts blocked Trump’s attempts to send the National Guard into Chicago and Portland, Oregon, saying his justification had no factual basis.
Chicago: No rebellion, no emergency — just political theater
Trump has repeatedly depicted Chicago as a war-torn city, once even sharing a meme of himself standing before a fiery skyline under helicopter fire. His administration tried to justify sending in federal forces by claiming there was an “uprising” that local police couldn’t control.
But US District Judge April Perry rejected the argument outright, ruling last Thursday that no rebellion existed under any legal definition. She wrote that the government’s claims were “simply unreliable” and contradicted by every piece of local and state evidence. Far from a violent insurrection, the protests Trump cited had fewer than 200 people — and more than enough police to manage them.
She even warned that Trump’s intervention risked provoking unrest, not preventing it.
Portland: A Trump-appointed judge calls out the lies
The ruling from Oregon was even more striking — because it came from Judge Karin Immergut, whom Trump himself nominated to the bench.
Trump called Portland “war ravaged” and overrun by Antifa, claiming the city was “on the brink of insurrection.” Immergut disagreed completely. In a 60-page ruling, she said that by the time Trump ordered troops to Oregon, protests near an ICE facility had shrunk to about 20 people.
She wrote that Trump’s narrative was “untethered to the facts” — a devastating line from a judge normally expected to defer to the president on national security issues.
Los Angeles and beyond: More judges push back
These rulings follow a growing pattern. Trump’s deployment of federal forces in Los Angeles was also blocked after US District Judge Charles Breyer concluded there was no breakdown of order. The protests there were no worse than typical major city demonstrations — and certainly not grounds for military action.
Courts also reject Trump’s “invasion” at the border
Trump has also repeatedly claimed that the southern border is under “invasion,” using the word to justify invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport migrants without due process.
But even conservative judges have rejected that claim too.
– Judge Leslie Southwick (nominated by George W. Bush) ruled that illegal immigration does not meet the legal definition of an “invasion.”
– Trump-appointed Judge Fernando Rodriguez Jr. came to the same conclusion, writing that the Venezuelan gang Trump blamed for the crisis does not constitute a military threat to the United States.
The reality: real problems — but no apocalypse
The US is not without serious issues. There have been assassination attempts, acts of political violence and persistent crime challenges. But courts have repeatedly concluded that Trump is inflating isolated incidents into a justification for near-dictatorial powers.
His claims of “rebellions” and “invasions” are repeatedly falling apart in courtrooms — even before judges who share his political party.
And as those judges examine the facts, a clear legal conclusion is emerging:
Trump is trying to wage war against a threat that doesn’t exist.