At a highly unusual assembly at Marine Corps Base Quantico, President Donald Trump told nearly 800 senior military commanders that the United States is “under invasion from within” and that American cities should serve as “training grounds” for troops to target domestic “enemies.” The remarks, delivered Tuesday before generals and admirals summoned by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, drew immediate condemnation from civil liberties advocates, elected officials, and legal experts.
“They’re vicious people that we have to fight,” Trump said, referring to critical journalists, whom he called “sleazebags.” He added, “Just like you have to fight vicious people, mine are a different kind of vicious.”
Trump singled out cities “run by the radical left Democrats… San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles,” describing them as “very unsafe places, and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one.” He told the commanders, “And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room. This is a war too. It’s a war from within.”
Referring to Hegseth, Trump said, “and I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU’s Equality Division, warned that when Trump spoke of an “enemy within,” he meant “those who disagree with him.” Shah said, “We don’t need to spell out how dangerous the president’s message is, but here goes: Military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president’s critics. In cities across the country, the president’s federal deployments are already creating conflict where there is none and instilling profound fear in people who are simply trying to live their lives and exercise their constitutional rights. Our country and democracy deserve far better than this.”
Trump broadened his claims, declaring, “only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within.” He said, “We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms—at least when they’re wearing a uniform you can take them out; these people don’t have uniforms. But we are under invasion from within; we’re stopping it very quickly.”
He turned his rhetoric on “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it comes to common sense,” falsely accusing the prior administration of opening borders to Venezuelans after the government “emptied its prison population into our country.” Trump also claimed “Washington, DC was the most unsafe, the most dangerous city in the United States of America, and to a large extent, beyond.” He asserted that “we took out 1,700 career criminals” during his takeover of the capital, despite records showing that more than 80% of arrests there were for misdemeanor offenses.
Trump insisted troops are “following in a great and storied military tradition” of confronting domestic enemies. “Today, I want to thank every service member from general to private who’s helped secure the nation’s capital and make America safe for the American people,” he said, before claiming, “we haven’t had a crime in Washington in so long.”
He then previewed new deployments: “We’re going into Chicago very soon,” Trump said, citing “Operation Midway Blitz,” which is already underway in the city. “How about Portland?” he added, describing the Oregon city as one that “looks like a war zone.” When Oregon Governor Tina Kotek asked him not to deploy forces, Trump said, “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”
Protests in Portland over Trump’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown have included flag burnings and small street fires, but no buildings have been burned down. In that context, Trump said anti-ICE protesters who throw objects at federal vehicles or agents can be met with unlimited force. “You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do,” he told military leaders.
Critics quickly denounced the remarks. Congressman Seth Moulton, a Marine Corps veteran who served in Iraq, wrote that “today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of ‘leadership’ by two small, insecure men.” He added, “US cities should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military. There is no ‘enemy from within.’ The reputational and operational damage being done to our military will take years to undo.”
The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State said, “This is authoritarian, unconstitutional, and a direct threat to our democracy.” The Not Above the Law Coalition, which includes Public Citizen, MoveOn, and Stand Up America, called Trump’s directives “deeply un-American.” The group’s leaders said, “This dangerous rhetoric delivered during an unprecedented gathering reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our military’s purpose and the people it serves. Make no mistake: This isn’t about public safety—it’s about turning our own military into a force to be used against Trump’s perceived political opponents or anyone who questions his administration. Americans cannot stay silent when our leaders express plans to use our military against us. We must reject any attempt to normalize this outrageous and unlawful directive.”
Observers abroad expressed similar alarm. José Antonio Salcedo, a professor at the University of Porto in Portugal, said, “In Trump’s speech today, Trump mentioned something very dangerous: using US cities (Democrat-run, I bet) as US troops training ground. This is definitely contrary to the US Constitution.” He added, “It comes right out of the fascism playbook that Project 2025 and its fringe lunatic authors have been advocating and planning. Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return.”
Some legal experts highlighted the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement. A federal judge recently ruled Trump’s use of the National Guard violated that law, though the decision is under appeal. Enforcement remains limited to military leaders refusing orders or the courts intervening, a process that could take months.
The extraordinary Quantico meeting, and Trump’s call to use US cities as “training grounds,” have fueled growing fears that federal deployments could increasingly target political opponents, journalists, and protesters under the guise of national security. As Rep. Moulton wrote, “US cities should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military.”
COMMENTS