Overshadowed by this week’s government shutdown fight was a highly unusual gathering of military officers at a Marine Corps base in Virginia.
Senior commanders were called in from around the world on short notice to hear from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth about changes inside the Pentagon.
From the outset, Trump seemed puzzled by his reception.
“I’ve never walked into a room so silent before,” he said in an awkward start to his speech.
Even before a military audience, Trump’s remarks sounded much like his regular stump speech, featuring sharp jabs at former President Joe Biden (“every day the guy is falling down stairs”) and talk about trade (“tariff is my favorite word”).
But one of Trump’s messages was that the military may soon have a new mission: dealing with fellow Americans.
“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 said.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” he added while talking about “the enemy within.”
The idea of using American cities as training for U.S. soldiers landed with a thud among Democrats some 35 miles north on Capitol Hill.
“U. S. cities should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military,” said U.S. Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., who served in the Marines.
“Why would a president ever consider deploying the military against his own citizens?” asked U.S. Rep. Eugene Vindman, D-Va., an Iraq War veteran.
“It should send chills down the spines of every single American,” said U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa., who served in the Air Force.
The GOP reaction was a familiar sidestep. For example, House Speaker Mike Johnson refused to comment during a live interview on ABC.
The assembled generals and admirals also sat silently through the speech of the defense secretary, who vowed to erase “woke” standards in the military.
As you would expect, there were no postgame comments from military leaders about what they heard.
The White House press pool report about the Trump’s speech noted officers “looking expressionless.” It said the president’s attacks on Biden were “met with silence.”
Before Trump arrived, he already had a message for the generals and admirals. “If I don’t like somebody, I’m going to fire him right on the spot.”
Trump did not repeat that threat in his speech.
“I was told that, ‘sir, you won’t hear a murmur in the room,’” Trump said in remarks that lasted 72 minutes.
What did those military officers think about possibly being ordered into American cities? We don’t know. But maybe their body language and “polite applause” told a larger story.
Jamie Dupree has covered national politics and Congress from Washington, D.C. since the Reagan administration. His column appears weekly in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. For more, check out his Capitol Hill newsletter at http://jamiedupree.substack.com
About the Author
Keep Reading
The Latest
Featured
