Trump suggests military to use ‘dangerous’ US cities as ‘training grounds’; ‘Going into Chicago very soon’
President Donald Trump urged military officials to use US cities as training grounds, emphasizing a need to combat internal threats and crime.
President Donald Trump told a group of military officials on Tuesday that they should utilize US cities as “training grounds” and that “a war from within” necessitates a government crackdown on crime in big cities.
He used a highly unusual gathering of officers stationed around the world to deliver a largely political speech that highlighted border security and rooting out “woke” culture.
“After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help, we’re defending the borders of our country,” Trump said on Tuesday at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
“It’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” he added.
Aside from teasing “major reforms” to defense acquisition processes and foreign military sales, Trump’s remarks largely drew on familiar themes. He repeated claims of resolving seven wars, criticized the “corrupt” media, and pledged to root out political correctness — sounding more like a rally than a traditional address by the commander-in-chief to his top military leaders.
Trump said he was ready to fire officials who he doesn’t like, echoing his Pentagon chief, Pete Hegseth, who was originally slated to be the sole keynote speaker at the event.
“If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room,” Trump said to some laughter from the crowd of hundreds — nearly all uniformed military brass. “Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But you just feel nice and loose, OK? Because we’re all on the same team.”
Trump’s speech once again highlighted how he has sought to involve the military in his political agenda, waging cultural fights that top officers have long worked to steer clear of over fears that it could erode public support for an institution that’s meant to be apolitical.
Since taking office, Trump has deployed troops to the border and several American cities for law enforcement and immigration raids, fired the first woman to lead a military service branch, axed the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and restored the names of bases previously honoring Confederate generals.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump said.
He went on to say that they were “going into Chicago very soon” , adding that Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone” [residents have said this is “entirely divorced from reality”].
The president’s speech also included some off-color language. When discussing the nuclear threat posed by Russia, he quipped, “I call it the n-word. There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
The president’s remarks, in front of a largely silent room, followed Hegseth’s 45-minute speech in which he also urged his top military leaders to quit the service if they were not aligned with his vision.
The pair of addresses capped almost a week of speculation around the event’s purpose, with critics citing the high costs and operational security risks of bringing in hundreds of officers from US bases around the world — and officials including Vice President JD Vance rejecting suggestions that the gathering was unusual.
Hegseth in his speech underscored strict physical standards for the entire force and said he would change how inspectors general process complaints and move away from a range of diversity practices.
“If the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, you should do the honorable thing and resign,” Hegseth said Tuesday, though he predicted most would agree with his remarks.
Hegseth’s comments on potential resignations dovetailed with his memo in May that called for slashing as much as 20% of the US military’s highest-ranking officers. Noting that he’s fired several senior officers since taking his post, Hegseth said “it’s nearly impossible to change a culture with the same people who helped create or even benefited from that culture.”
Before leaving the White House for his remarks at the Quantico base, Trump told reporters, “I’m going to be meeting with generals and with admirals and with leaders, and if I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire ‘em right on the spot.”
Trump’s comments build on actions he’s taken to draw the military into domestic matters in unprecedented ways.
Active-duty soldiers have been posted to the US-Mexico border, while National Guardsmen have been deployed or taken orders to patrol the streets of Washington, Memphis, Portland and Chicago. Hegseth’s also rejected questions around the legality of attacking alleged narco-traffickers from Venezuela in the Caribbean Sea.
Since taking the top post at the Pentagon in January, the former National Guard officer and Fox News commentator has aggressively carried out Trump’s agenda to overhaul the armed forces, denouncing a military culture that Hegseth claims has strayed from its “war-fighting” mission.
Hegseth suggested that the military brass had been unnecessarily restrained from risk-taking due to policies of previous administrations. He announced plans to make changes to how information in personnel records is retained — something he said would “allow leaders with forgivable, earnest, or minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in perpetuity.”
He said he would overhaul the inspector general and equal opportunity programs.
“No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complainants, no more smearing reputations,” Hegseth said. “No more walking on eggshells.”
Hegseth is the subject of an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general, an independent oversight authority, for leaking classified information in a Signal messaging chat that inadvertently included a journalist.
The speech also repeated familiar themes as Hegseth ordered every service member, regardless of rank, to pass the highest physical training standards — emphasizing these are “male” benchmarks — and saying “it’s completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon.”
Although Hegseth’s speech — delivered in front of a giant American flag — focused on his culture-war agenda, he previewed the fresh national strategy document that’s imminently expected, noting that “the nature of the threats we face in our hemisphere and in deterring China is another speech for another day coming soon.”
He also promoted another document to the assembled US general and flag officers: his 2024 book The War on Warriors, which criticized supposed “woke” military practices.
“You might say we’re ending the war on warriors,” Hegseth said. “I heard someone wrote a book about that.”
