Speaking to a Room Full of Generals, Commander-in-Chief Donald Trump Declares War on Major American Cities Run by Democrats

Sep 30, 2025

In a speech to 800 of America’s top military officers, brought home with little notice for a highly unusual meeting, Donald Trump announced a vision for the U.S. military that centers on the use of force against our own cities to quell civil unrest.

A report in Time summarizes this message:

President Donald Trump on Tuesday signaled that he would make greater use of the U.S. military to quell disturbances Democratic-run cities across the United States, warning of a “war from within” and comparing domestic threats to foreign enemies.
“The ones that are run by the radical left Democrats ... what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, they’re very unsafe places. And we’re going to straighten them out one by one. This is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he said in a speech to military leaders. “That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.” …
“We should use some of the dangerous cities and training grounds” for the military, Trump said. He added that he’s given an order to create military “quick reaction forces” to “help quell civil disturbances.” Deploying the military for civilian law enforcement would violate the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878.

Given that there is no insurrection or civil unrest to put down, and given that he is only targeting cities run by Democrats, we can assume that what Trump really intends is to use the military to suppress protests and punish his political opponents.

The only comfort we can take from this speech is the military’s response:

When Trump started the speech, none of the hundreds of command officers applauded, keeping with a tradition of not applauding political leaders in order to show that the military’s role is set apart from American politics. Trump said he’d never walked into a room so silent.

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