President Trump on Tuesday told top military brass that American cities could be used as “training grounds” for their troops.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump said as part of a rambling speech to hundreds of military commanders who had been summoned to Quantico, Virginia. He later added: “We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”
In recent weeks and months, Trump has ordered controversial deployments of National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and Portland, Oregon, despite the insistence of local leaders that those troops weren’t needed.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement that the meeting was a distraction for the troops and a waste of their time. He called Trump’s suggestion of using cities as training grounds “a dangerous assault on our democracy, treating our own communities as war zones and our citizens as enemies.”
Hegseth pushes his ‘warrior ethos’: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also addressed the unusual gathering of admirals and generals, raising familiar culture war complaints and decrying what he called “decades of decay” at a department that had been infected with “social justice, politically correct and toxic ideological garbage.”
Hegseth emphasized fitness and grooming as part of his clean-up effort. “It's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” Hegseth told the gathered leaders. “The era of unprofessional appearance is over. No more beardos.”
Hegseth also announced that he is loosening disciplinary rules surrounding bullying and hazing as part of an effort to toughen training.
Questions about cost: As The New York Times noted, “It was standard fare for Mr. Hegseth, who will undoubtedly come under criticism for the expense of flying the commanders to the Washington area as a federal shutdown looms.”
In the lead-up to the event, the reasons for it were a mystery and the subject of much speculation. So what was the purpose? The messages delivered reinforced the Trump administration’s focus on remaking the Pentagon’s culture, Trump’s willingness to have troops patrolling the streets of America’s cities and Hegseth’s war on “woke.”
That left critics still questioning the need to bring in military leaders from far-flung deployments as well as the costs and the security risks involved.
“This event was an expensive, dangerous dereliction of leadership by the Trump Administration,” Reed said. “Even more troubling was Mr. Hegseth’s ultimatum to America’s senior officers: conform to his political worldview or step aside. That demand is profoundly dangerous. It signals that partisan loyalty matters more than capability, judgment, or service to the Constitution, undermining the principle of a professional, nonpartisan military.”