1950 speech<\/a> about threats to democracy. McCarthy is best known for his aggressive campaign against alleged communist infiltration in the US government and society.<\/p>\n\n\n\nAddressing an auditorium full of top brass from around the world, Trump said he told Pete Hegseth that \u201cwe should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Trump acknowledged that he had been criticised for deploying the military on US streets but claimed America was in the grips of a battle against immigrants in the country illegally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAmerica is under invasion from within,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don\u2019t wear uniforms. At least when they\u2019re wearing a uniform, you can take them out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The president encouraged soldiers harassed or assaulted by protesters to \u201cget out of that car and do whatever the hell you want to do\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Democrats condemned the remarks as a dangerous escalation worthy of an authoritarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gavin Newsom, the California governor, whose name has been floated as a possible 2028 presidential contender, said the speech should terrify people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cDeclaring war on our nation\u2019s cities and using our troops as political pawns is what dictators do. This man cares about nothing but his own ego and power,\u201d Newsom posted on X.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pritzker called for the 25th amendment to the constitution, which deals with the removal of a president incapacitated by a physical or mental illness, to be applied. \u201cThere is something genuinely wrong with this man, and the 25th amendment ought to be invoked,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chuck Schumer, the Democratic minority leader in the Senate, told MSNBC\u2019s Morning Joe: \u201cSo, this is totally against the American grain, and it\u2019s one example of many that they\u2019re moving to an autocracy away from a democracy. In dictatorships, the federal military goes into the cities to do bad things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Civil society groups also condemned the plans. Naureen Shah, director of government affairs of the equality division at the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), said: \u201cWe don\u2019t need to spell out how dangerous the president\u2019s message is, but here goes: military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president\u2019s critics.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Not Above the Law coalition said in a statement: \u201cTrump\u2019s suggestion that US cities should serve as military \u2018training grounds\u2019 represents a fundamental betrayal of American values. Our military exists to defend our nation and protect our freedoms, not to practice combat operations against our neighbors in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 is supposed to prevent presidents from using the military as a domestic police force. But Trump has exploited a loophole by deploying the national guard, a reserve force often used for natural disasters, and creating a new \u201cquick reaction force\u201d for crushing domestic unrest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Tuesday\u2019s event in Quantico, the defense secretary vowed the military would abolish \u201coverbearing rules of engagement\u201d and \u201cuntie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country\u201d.
There were few visible reactions from the generals and admirals, who sat largely silent and expressionless. Trump, accustomed to roars or laughs at campaign rallies, found his punchlines fell flat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
theguardian<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Illinois governor JB Pritzker and others condemn president for suggesting cities be used as military training grounds A leading Democrat has compared Donald Trump to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin after the US president told military leaders on Tuesday that the armed forces should use US cities as \u201ctraining grounds\u201d. JB Pritzker, the governor of Illinois, which is bracing for Trump […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":48110,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1153],"tags":[1236,1708,34823,4451,1230],"class_list":["post-48109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-military","tag-democrats","tag-illinois","tag-military-training","tag-putin","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48109"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48109\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48111,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48109\/revisions\/48111"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/48110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}