About the April 20 Martial Law Rumors; Harvard Stands Up to Trump–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: April 14, 2025

Indy Digest: April 14, 2025

There’s been a rumor circulating on social media saying that on April 20—which just so happens to be Easter—President Trump intends to impose martial law.

Yikes, right? Fortunately, this won’t actually happen. Well, OK, it *probably* won’t happen.

To explain what these rumors are all about, and break down the very real facts behind the rumors, here are three articles worth reading, from very different sources.

The first one comes from Snopes, which does a great job of explaining how these rumors started:

Online users shared a rumor claiming U.S. President Donald Trump would invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807 on April 20, 2025, followed by him declaring martial law. The Insurrection Act grants U.S. presidents the power to deploy the military into states for civilian law enforcement.

To share the rumor, users copied and pasted the text from the first (archived) in a series of articles written by a Medium.com blogger only identified by the handle of Aletheisthenes.

The rumor partly pertained to a Trump executive order issued on Jan. 20 declaring a national emergency at the southern U.S. border. Part of that order requested Trump to receive a joint report from the secretaries of defense and homeland security “within 90 days” — or by April 20 — advising “whether to invoke the Insurrection Act of 1807.” The order did not explicitly mention the words “martial law.”

While Aletheisthenes, the author of the series of articles, featured at length a wealth of data about Trump’s past actions, as well as information about the Insurrection Act of 1807 and martial law, this rumor existed more as a prediction than a provable claim.

Note that Snopes writer Jordan Liles doesn’t specifically debunk the rumor; he just says there’s nothing the definitive proving that this is what Trump intends to do.

The second article comes from that most milquetoast of news sources, USA Today. It cites the aforementioned Snopes piece while filling in the basic details on the laws and officials involved. This piece doesn’t put forth any conclusions, either, but it’s rather informative. While the Snopes article points out that ” the secretaries of defense and homeland security” are the cabinet officials involved in the report, the USA Today piece actually names those officials, which Snopes does not—and this is an important detail you might miss if you’re not connecting all the dots.

The defense secretary? Pete Hegseth. The homeland security secretary? Kristi Noem.

The third piece I’ll share is from a source that is decidedly neither milquetoast nor neutral—Indivisible, the coalition of local groups that have been, among other activities, helping organize the various protests against the Trump administration. Their conclusion:

A report from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, due to Trump on April 20, could include a recommendation to invoke the Act as part of Trump’s effort to “secure” the southern border.

But let’s be clear: this may not happen. Trump may decide the political climate isn’t right. He may worry about backlash or simply calculate that the move isn’t worth the trouble. There’s no guarantee he invokes the Act on April 20—or at all.

Still, we’d be foolish not to take the possibility seriously. This isn’t about fear. It’s about preparation. So we’re offering a clear-eyed explainer of what the Insurrection Act is, how it could be abused, and what kind of responses might be needed if it is invoked.

We’re not calling for mass action right now because the specifics of what would happen if Trump invoked the Act are important. We’re not predicting exactly what will happen. We’re inviting people to think ahead, talk to each other, and begin planning.

It’s highly likely these rumors are just that—rumors, and that April 20 will come and go without any martial law declaration. But it’s very much worth paying attention to the actions that led to the rumors, as well as that report that’s due on April 20.

It seems impossible that Trump would declare martial law. But a LOT of the things Trump’s administration is doing right now would have seemed pretty impossible, at least to many people, several months ago.

—Jimmy Boegle

From the Independent

More News

• As various universities, news outlets and law firms appease the president, Harvard University is taking the opposite tack and standing up to Trump. NBC News says: “Harvard University will ‘not accept’ the Trump administration’s demands amid threats of funding cuts, it said Monday. ‘The university will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,’ the university’s X account said in a statement posted Monday. ‘Neither Harvard nor any other private university can allow itself to be taken over by the federal government.’ In an email to the Harvard community, President Alan M. Garber said the university received ‘an updated and expanded list of demands’ from the Trump administration, warning it to comply if it would like to ‘maintain financial relationship with the federal government.’ The 10 demands, which the administration says are aimed at addressing antisemitism on campus, include restricting acceptance of any international students who are ‘hostile to the American values and institutions.’ The administration also wants a third party to audit programs at the school that it says ‘fuel antisemitic harassment or reflect ideological capture.’ The administration also demanded the immediate shuttering of all diversity, equity and inclusion programs and initiatives, including in hiring and admissions, asking Harvard to exchange them for ‘merit-based’ policies.”

• Meanwhile, the president continues to threaten media sources he doesn’t like. So much for the First Amendment. CNN says: “President Donald Trump has a ‘hope’ for his Federal Communications Commission: that the agency will punish CBS for airing ‘60 Minutes’ reports he doesn’t like. Apparently angered by Sunday night’s ‘60 Minutes’ telecast, Trump wrote on Truth Social about his ongoing legal battle with CBS and its parent company, Paramount Global, which is awaiting FCC approval to merge with Skydance Media. Trump name-checked the man he promoted to chair the FCC, Brendan Carr, whom he called ‘Highly Respected.’ He said hopefully Carr ‘will impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.’ There is no evidence of illegal behavior by CBS. … On Sunday night, he (said about) ‘60 Minutes,’ the most-watched newsmagazine in the country … ‘They are not a “News Show,” but a dishonest Political Operative simply disguised as “News,” and must be responsible for what they have done, and are doing.’ He also wrote that CBS ‘should lose their license’ after the network aired two stories on Sunday—one about Ukraine and another about Greenland.“

• The New York Times reports about the Naval Academy’s library: “An order by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office resulted in a purge of books critical of racism but preserved volumes defending white power.” The lede: “Gone is ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ Maya Angelou’s transformative best-selling 1970 memoir chronicling her struggles with racism and trauma. Two copies of ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler are still on the shelves. Gone is ‘Memorializing the Holocaust,’ Janet Jacobs’s 2010 examination of how female victims of the Holocaust have been portrayed and remembered. ‘The Camp of the Saints’ by Jean Raspail is still on the shelves. The 1973 novel, which envisions a takeover of the Western world by immigrants from developing countries, has been embraced by white supremacists and promoted by Stephen Miller, a senior White House adviser. ‘The Bell Curve,’ which argues that Black men and women are genetically less intelligent than white people, is still there. But a critique of the book was pulled. The Trump administration’s decision to order the banning of certain books from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library is a case study in ideological censorship, alumni and academics say.”

• Speaking of the aforementioned law firms backing down when attacked by the president: The New York Times looked at how attorneys are dealing with these unprecedented aggressions: “Trump’s sanctions and some firms’ decisions to strike deals with him have shaken the profession, with attorneys across the country grappling with fear, outrage, anxiety and uncertainty. Attorneys at some law firms that reached agreements with Trump have quit in protest, while others have debated whether to make the same move. ‘People are despondent,’ said an attorney who used to work at a firm that struck a deal with Trump. ‘It is devastating to all of us. Nobody really knows what to do.’ Since February, Trump has been targeting several high-profile firms that challenged his policies or had ties to his perceived enemies, signing executive orders stripping them of government contracts and banning their attorneys from federal buildings. Some firms filed lawsuits fighting his orders, while others sought to avoid sanctions and agreed to deals promising a total of nearly $1 billion in pro bono legal counsel to causes Trump supports. In messages to their employees, some firms that reached agreements with Trump defended the decisions as necessary to keep their businesses afloat. But attorneys across the industry said the issue is larger than any one firm’s revenue, describing Trump’s penalties and deals alike as imperiling core elements of the legal system—including a person’s right to choose their own lawyers and those lawyers’ ability to represent them zealously, even against the government.”

• The Wired headline says: “The Social Security Administration Is Gutting Regional Staff and Shifting All Public Communications to X. The SSA’s shift to Elon Musk’s X comes as the agency plans to cut its regional office workforce by roughly 90 percent, WIRED has learned.” Amazing. Details: “The Social Security Administration will no longer be communicating with the media and the public through press releases and ‘dear colleague’ letters, as it shifts its public communication exclusively to X, sources tell WIRED. The news comes amid major staffing cuts at the agency. ‘We are no longer planning to issue press releases or those dear colleague letters to inform the media and public about programmatic and service changes,’ said SSA regional commissioner Linda Kerr-Davis in a meeting with managers earlier this week. ‘Instead, the agency will be using X to communicate to the press and the public … so this will become our communication mechanism.’ Previously, the agency used dear colleague letters to engage with advocacy groups and third-party organizations that help people access social security benefits. Recent letters covered everything from the agency’s new identity verification procedures to updates on the accuracy of SSA death records (‘less than one-third of 1 percent are erroneously reported deaths that need to be corrected,’ the agency wrote, in contrast to what Elon Musk claims).”

• Measles isn’t the only largely preventable disease on the rise; whooping cough is making a comeback as well. ProPublica says: “In the past six months, two babies in Louisiana have died of pertussis, the disease commonly known as whooping cough. Washington state recently announced its first confirmed death from pertussis in more than a decade. Idaho and South Dakota each reported a death this year, and Oregon last year reported two as well as its highest number of cases since 1950. While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak concentrated in the small, dusty towns of West Texas, cases of pertussis have skyrocketed by more than 1,500% nationwide since hitting a recent low in 2021 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Deaths tied to the disease are also up, hitting 10 last year, compared with about two to four in previous years. Cases are on track to exceed that total this year. Doctors, researchers and public health experts warn that the measles outbreak, which has grown to more than 600 cases, may just be the beginning. They say outbreaks of preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and the Trump administration slashing spending on the country’s public health infrastructure.”

• And finally … our partners at Calmatters investigate the DMV’s history of letting dangerous drivers remain behind the wheel—often with deadly consequences: “We found nearly 40% of the drivers charged with vehicular manslaughter since 2019 have a valid license. That includes a driver with two separate convictions for vehicular manslaughter, for crashes that killed a 16-year-old girl in 2009 and a 25-year-old woman in 2020. In July of last year, the DMV issued him a driver’s license. The agency gave licenses to nearly 150 people less than a year after they allegedly killed someone on the road, we found. And while the agency has since suspended some of those, often after a conviction, the majority remain valid. In Santa Clara County, a man prosecutors charged with manslaughter got his current license just a month and a half after the collision that killed a mother of three young children. And many drivers accused of causing roadway deaths don’t appear to have stopped driving recklessly. Records show that nearly 400 got a ticket or were in another crash—or both—after their deadly collisions.”

Support the Independent!

If you learned something from this newsletter, or you got something out of other Independent coverage—which came to you free of charge—please consider helping us continue producing quality news by clicking the button below and becoming a Supporter of the Independent. Thanks for reading!