President Donald Trump told a gathering of top military brass on Tuesday that he wants forces to focus on threats within the U.S. — including a potential escalation of National Guard deployments.
“I told Pete, we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard,” he said, referring to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.
The winding, hour-long speech was part of an unprecedented gathering of generals who flew in from around the globe on Hegseth’s orders, prompting confusion and safety concerns. The event wound up being a pair of televised speeches that hit on military readiness, limiting oversight, wars abroad and what Trump called “a war from within” over unauthorized immigration and crime.