Trump tells military generals ‘we’re under invasion from within’
“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms,” Trump says.
Key events
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Trump suggets ‘dangerous cities’ should be used ‘as training grounds’ for the military and national guard
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Trump says ‘straightening out’ US cities will be ‘a major part for some of the people in this room’
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Trump tells military generals ‘we’re under invasion from within’
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Trump says he wants to get Putin and Zelenskyy together
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Trump says Hamas ‘has to agree’ to US proposal for Gaza, adding ‘if they don’t it’s going to be very tough on them’
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Trump says he’s never seen ‘a room so silent before’ as he address top military brass
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Hegseth tells generals if they do not agree with him, ‘do the honorable thing and resign’
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Hegseth says that if new military standards prevent women from serving in combat, ‘it is what it is’
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Pentagon will review its definitions of ‘toxic leadership’, ‘bullying’ and ‘hazing’, says Hegseth
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‘No more beardos,’ Hegseth tells military leaders they must look professional
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‘Fat troops are tiring to look at’: Hegseth orders top officers to focus on fitness
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Combat troops will have to meet ‘highest male standard’, Hegseth says
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‘We are done with that shit’: Hegseth says military is done with diversity efforts in extraordinary speech to generals
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‘You might say, we’re ending the war on warriors,’ says Pete Hegseth in speech to military leaders
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Trump and Hegseth to address unprecedented gathering of military leaders
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Trump gutting protected status for immigrants will strain US healthcare, Democrats warn
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Donald Trump to preside over gathering of US military’s top commanders in Quantico, Virginia
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US justice department sues Minnesota over sanctuary city policies
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Pentagon review reportedly confirms Aukus submarines pact is safe
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US deports planeload of Iranians after deal with Tehran, New York Times says
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US government to shut down within hours if no funding deal agreed
He says that if military or police vehicles are hit with bricks or other objects, that officers should “do whatever the hell” they want.
“You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do, because those people are, you now can die from that,” he says.
Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone”, he says. “This place is a nightmare.” [Trump has authorized deployment of the national guard there but the city and state have sued the administration over the move.]
“It looks like a war zone, and I get a call from the liberal governor. ‘Sir, please don’t come in. We don’t need you.’ I said, ‘Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looks like World War II, your place is burning down’,” he says.
The Guardian’s Robert Mackey wrote about Portland at the weekend – and described Trump’s portrayal of the city as “entirely divorced from reality”.
He writes:
There were just four protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in an outlying residential neighborhood that the president had claimed was “under siege” by antifascists and “other domestic terrorists”. Jack Dickinson, 26, wore a chicken costume draped in an American flag and held a sign that read “Portland Will Outlive Him”. Passing motorists honked in appreciation.
Dickinson, who is from Portland and has helped organize the small but persistent protest at that location, which is going on three months, said he was not surprised to see Trump focus his attention on the city. But he called the president’s threat to have soldiers use “full force” against the protesters, whose numbers occasionally swell into the dozens, unwarranted.
Trump suggets ‘dangerous cities’ should be used ‘as training grounds’ for the military and national guard
“I told Pete [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city with an incompetent governor,” the president says.
Trump says ‘straightening out’ US cities will be ‘a major part for some of the people in this room’
He criticizes Democrat-led cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and LA. “They’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one.”
“And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can’t let these people in,” he adds.
He blames “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it came to common sense” for his qualms with migration to the US.
Trump tells military generals ‘we’re under invasion from within’
“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms,” Trump says.
He claims Canada called him a couple of weeks ago to express interest in being part of his Golden Dome missile defense system.
“They want to be part of it, to which I said, ‘Why don’t you just join our country? You become 51, become the 51st state, and you get it for free,’” he says. “They’re having a hard time up there in Canada now, because, as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country.”
Due to political correctness, “we had people who were totally unfit to be doing what you’re doing”, he tells military leaders. “Now, it’s all based on merit.”
He starts talking about the importance of merit, before getting distracted by his love of the word tariff and claims that America is becoming “rich as hell”.
He says it’s been “such an honor” to play a role in ending conflicts around the world.
“And then we have Putin and Zelenskyy, the easiest one of them all, I said, that one, I’ll get done. I thought that was going to be first,” he says.
We’re on paper now. Trump praises “beautiful paper” and how much he loves his own signature, and criticizes Joe Biden’s previous use of an autopen – so much so he refers to the former president as “the autopen”.
“You know, when I have a general and I have to sign for a general, because we have beautiful paper. They’re gorgeous paper. I said, ‘Throw a little more gold on it. They deserve it,’” he says.
“I always think to myself, ‘How can you have an autopen sign this?’” he says. “It’s just so disrespectful to me. It’s just totally disrespectful.”
Trump has used an autopen in the past too.
Trump says that people shouldn’t “throw around” the word nuclear. “I call it the N-word. There are two N-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
“We were a little bit threatened by Russia recently, and I sent a submarine, nuclear submarine, the most lethal weapon ever made,” Trump says. “Number one, you can’t detect it. There’s no way. We’re 25 years ahead of Russia and China in submarines.”
“Frankly, if it does get to use, we have more than anybody else,” Trump says, referring to the US nuclear arsenal. “We have better, we have newer, but it’s something we don’t ever want to even have to think about.”
Trump says he wants to get Putin and Zelenskyy together
Trump reiterates that Vladimir Putin and Volodymyr Zelenskyy need to get together to end Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
Trump says Hamas ‘has to agree’ to US proposal for Gaza, adding ‘if they don’t it’s going to be very tough on them’
“Hamas has to agree” to his Gaza plan, he says. “And if they don’t it’s going to be very tough on them, but it is what it is.”
He goes on a couple of tangents about the border and his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
Trump says he’s never seen ‘a room so silent before’ as he address top military brass
Donald Trump is speaking now.
He says he’s “never walked into a room so silent before”.
Some in the audience laugh, to which Trump jokes: “Don’t laugh, you’re not allowed to do that.”
“Just have a good time,” he adds. “And if you want to applaud, you applaud. And if you want to do anything you want, you can do anything you want. And if you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.”
People laugh, and Trump tells them to “feel nice and loose”.
Hegseth tells generals if they do not agree with him, ‘do the honorable thing and resign’
He tells senior military officers to “do the honorable thing and resign” if they don’t agree with his views on diversity, the past Covid-19 vaccine mandate for the military, or his criticisms of transgender individuals.
“The sooner we have the right people, the sooner we can advance the right policies,” he says. “But if the words I’m speaking today are making your heart sink, then you should do the honorable thing and resign,” he says.
