Trump Tells Generals to Prepare for War on Dem-Controlled Cities
This is your TPM evening briefing.
President Trump and Defense (sorry, War) Secretary Pete Hegseth each gave speeches before hundreds of unamused top U.S. military officials, who were dragged away from their work commanding the U.S. military and to Quantico, Virginia this week for, up until Tuesday, mysterious reasons.
It appears the generals and other officials were gathered together as part of an ego-trip for both men, who outlined their dystopian visions for the armed forces during the rest of Trump’s time in office. We’ll get into Hegseth’s “warrior ethos,” anti-women speech more below, but there was a moment in Trump’s speech in which he detailed how exactly he intends to carry out his ongoing war with urban parts of the country that have elected Democratic politicians as their leaders. He described defending America’s borders as the “most important priority” and suggested that there’s a “war from within” happening in American cities, also alluding to his idea that there’s some amorphous antifa and leftist mob doing domestic terrorism. From there, he mused about using the nation’s “dangerous” cities as a training ground for the military.
Here are some key, sinister bits:
“We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”
[…]
“We have many cities in great shape, too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones 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. 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.”
[…]
“And I told Pete 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 with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor.”
These remarks nod at a few things we’ve been tracking for some time.
Trump’s retribution plans for his political foes have swelled in recent weeks, as his allies assert that the usual sprawling, nebulous blob of supposed radical leftists that have been a bête noire in right-wing media and conspiracy theories for some time is actually supposedly now responsible for all political violence in America. This faceless enemy from within has taken many forms in Trump’s telling over the years: the “deep state” that sabotaged his first term; the antifa-FBI alliance responsible for doing Jan. 6th; George Soros, of course, and all his supposed lib dark money pals, who are involved in some way in pretty much every conspiracy theory he elevates. “Antifa” again became a target of Trump’s ire when he labeled the entity — which in truth is more of a worldview or an approach to protest — a domestic terrorist group in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder. This perceived band of bad people who “don’t wear uniforms” is just another form of that narrative.
Additionally, as TPM has reported, Trump’s been looking for ways to flex power over his political enemies and the people who didn’t vote for him who live in places “run by the radical-left Democrats,” as he described them on Tuesday. This flexing has mostly taken the form of threatening to pull federal funding from any blue cities that ensure sanctuary protections for undocumented immigrants, as well as sending the National Guard into blue cities he doesn’t like under the guise of some massive crackdown on crime.
Threatening to send the military into blue cities for “training,” while characterizing both immigrants and the people who live in the U.S., but who maybe didn’t vote for him, as “no different from a foreign enemy” is an escalation of Trump’s authoritarian vision on both fronts.
Hegseth Outlines Anti-Women Military Plan
The Los Angeles Times has a good piece summarizing the most egregious moments of the Trump/Hegseth speech today, but I wanted to bring one more bit of news to your attention. Hegseth railed against “diversity” in the military and said the Pentagon would henceforth blow up any “woke” policies that he believes are holding the armed forces back. That apparently includes allowing women to serve in combat.
“But when it comes to any job that requires physical power to perform in combat, those physical standards must be high and gender neutral,” he said. “If women can make it, excellent, if not, it is what it is. If that means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it. That is not the intent, but it could be the result.”
Government Poised to Shut Down
It appears that Senate Dems are holding the line and don’t intend to give Republicans the votes they need to pass a bill to keep the government open without some sort of compromise. The Trump administration is pulling out all the stops to pin the blame for the likely shutdown tonight on Democrats, despite the fact that Republicans control the entire government right now and Democrats are only asking that Congress extend ACA subsidies and restore Medicaid coverage in exchange for their votes.
If you want to catch up on all the drama on the Hill today, here’s a link to our on-the-ground liveblog coverage.
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‘Could have been an email’: Officials balk at Hegseth’s generals meeting