US President Donald Trump on Monday told the US military's top brass that the country is facing a “war from within” as it struggles with urban crime and what he called an “invasion” by migrants.
His was speaking during a gathering of senior generals and admirals, convened at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia by Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, who made a separate speech attacking "woke garbage" and "fat" troops.
“We're under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways because they don't wear uniforms,” Mr Trump said. He repeated claims that the US was facing a surge of illegal migration by foreign criminals.
“It's a war from within,” Mr Trump added later, referring to claimed crime waves in cities run by “radical-left Democrats”.
Since returning to office in January, Mr Trump has moved quickly to use the military to quell domestic protests.
National Guard troops have been stationed along the US-Mexican border and sent to cities such as Los Angeles and Washington. At the weekend, Mr Trump said he would send US troops to Portland, Oregon, to handle “domestic terrorists”, and added that he was authorising the use of “full force”.
“After spending trillions of dollars defending the borders of foreign countries, with your help, we’re defending the borders of our country,” he told the gathering at Quantico.
Mr Trump said he was prepared to fire any military official he dislikes.
“If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room,” Mr Trump said. “Of course, there goes your rank. There goes your future. But you just feel nice and loose, OK? Because we’re all on the same team.”
Officers sat stony-faced and mostly silent as their Commander-in-Chief spoke. The military is apolitical under the US Constitution, and the quiet lent a strange atmosphere to Mr Trump's speech, which lasted more than an hour. At the end of his speech, those attending gave a round of polite applause.
Before the President's address, Mr Hegseth gave a speech of his own, during which he reaffirmed that “woke garbage” would no longer be tolerated at the Pentagon.
'Fat' troops
During his speech – which also lasted for almost an hour – Mr Hegseth said the US military has promoted too many leaders based on race and gender quotas and “historic firsts”.
“The era of politically correct, overly sensitive don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now at every level,” he said.
Mr Hegseth has repeatedly made similar remarks since taking office, and has moved quickly to end diversity initiatives at what the Trump administration now calls the “Department of War”.
He said troops should adhere to "gender-neutral" training benchmarks, meaning that female soldiers would have to attain the "highest male standard only". He also said the Pentagon would increase its physical fitness assessments for troops.
"Because frankly, it's tiring to look out at combat formations ... and see fat troops," Mr Hegseth said. "Likewise, it's completely unacceptable to see fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon … it's a bad look."
He also said troops would no longer "fight with stupid rules of engagement". He has previously advocated for service members accused or convicted of war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq.
"We untie the hands of our war fighters to intimidate, demoralise, hunt and kill the enemies of our country," he said. "No more politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement; just common sense, maximum lethality and authority for war fighters."
