President Donald Trump informed hundreds of senior military leaders on Tuesday that he told Secretary of War Pete Hegseth that the military should use “dangerous cities” in the United States as “training grounds for our military.”
The president and secretary have deployed National Guard forces to quell civil unrest in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and have approved missions to Portland, Oregon and Memphis, Tennessee, with several other cities discussed as possible options.
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Trump addressed the hundreds of senior military leaders who traveled to Quantico, Virginia on Tuesday following an order from the secretary, who addressed the crowd ahead of the president.
“Portland, Oregon, where it looks like a war zone, and I get a call from the liberal governor, ‘Sir please don’t come in, we don’t need you.’ I said, ‘Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down. I mean, you must be kidding,'” Trump said.
Referencing the service members who have been deployed on these missions, Trump said he has told Hegseth, “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city.”
The president’s deployment of the National Guard troops quickly became a political issue.
He called up 4,000 California National Guard troops in opposition to the city mayor and state governor, who, under normal circumstances, are the heads of the state’s national guard. Hegseth also deployed about 700 Marines to the city to augment federal and local officials.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom filed a lawsuit to stop the mission, but it is still being adjudicated.
Trump faced less resistance federalizing troops to help reign in crime in Washington, D.C., because the president controls the D.C. National Guard, given there is no governor of the district. He has discussed the possibility of deploying troops to other cities as well, including Chicago and New York City.
Last month, Trump signed an executive order that called for the creation of a “quick reaction force” made up of National Guard troops available for “rapid nationwide deployment.”
HEGSETH PLEDGES TO RESHAPE WAR DEPARTMENT AFTER ‘DECADES OF DECAY’
“That is going to be a big thing for the people in this focus. It’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said, referencing the EO.
“It seems that the [cities] that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” the president added. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.”
Trump also said that military officers who are spat on while conducting crowd control missions should be allowed to “hit” that person back.
Many of the protests that have spurred the deployment of troops to inner cities have focused on protecting immigrants, both those who have legal status and those who don’t, who feel threatened by the administration’s emphasis on deporting illegal immigrants.