Trump Declares War on American Cities in Room Full of Military Leaders

[Celerity]

Minutes after Pete Hegseth promised to untie the hands of the military and unleash violence, Donald Trump named the cities he’d go to war with next.

https://newrepublic.com/post/201106/trump-war-american-cities-military-meeting

https://archive.ph/OILWs



Trump told senior generals and admirals they will be going to “war” on U.S. soil. In his address Tuesday before a rare gathering of hundreds of military leaders, who were summoned from around the world to Virginia, the president lamented “what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles”—cities where he’s threatened to send troops based on the baseless notion that Democratic officials have allowed crime to run rampant there.

Priming the top brass to conceive of forthcoming military operations in those cities as a “war,” Trump continued, “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.”

Trump: San Francisco and Chicago, New York, Los Angeles… We'll straighten them out one-by-one. It will be a major part for some of the people in this room. It’s a war too. It’s a war from within

— Acyn (@acyn.bsky.social) 2025-09-30T14:43:41.317Z

Trump later added that he’s told Defense Secretary 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.” The declaration came just after Hegseth—whose department Trump is seeking to rebrand as the “Department of War”—told the group, “War is something you do sparingly, on our own terms, and with clear aims. We fight to win. We unleash overwhelming and punishing violence on the enemy.

“We also don’t fight with stupid rules of engagement,” Hegseth added, referring to rules that govern when, how, and to what degree members of the military are permitted to use force against foreign combatants. “We untie the hands of our warfighters to intimidate, demoralize, hunt, and kill the enemies of our country.”

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