Trump calls for using US cities as a 'training ground' for military in
unusual speech to generals
[October 01, 2025]
By BEN FINLEY, KONSTANTIN TOROPIN and EVAN VUCCI
QUANTICO, Va. (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday proposed using
American cities as training grounds for the armed forces and spoke of
needing U.S. military might to combat what he called the "invasion from
within."
Addressing an audience of military brass abruptly summoned to Virginia,
Trump outlined a muscular and at times norm-shattering view of the
military's role in domestic affairs. He was joined by Defense Secretary
Pete Hegseth, who declared an end to “woke” culture and announced new
directives for troops that include “gender-neutral” or “male-level”
standards for physical fitness.
The dual messages underscored the Trump administration's efforts not
only to reshape contemporary Pentagon culture but to enlist military
resources for the president's priorities and for decidedly domestic
purposes, including quelling unrest and violent crime.
“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for
our military,” Trump said. He noted at another point: “We’re under
invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more
difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”
After calling hundreds of military leaders and their top advisers from
around the world to the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Hegseth largely
focused on long-used talking points that painted a picture of a military
hamstrung by “woke” policies. He said military leaders should “do the
honorable thing and resign” if they don’t like his new approach.
Though meetings between military brass and civilian leaders are nothing
new, this gathering had fueled intense speculation about its purpose
given the haste with which it was called and the mystery surrounding it.
The fact that admirals and generals from conflict zones were summoned
for a lecture on race and gender in the military showed the extent to
which the country’s culture wars have become a front-and-center agenda
item for Hegseth’s Pentagon, even at a time of broad national security
concerns across the globe.
‘We will not be politically correct’
Trump is accustomed to boisterous crowds of supporters who laugh at his
jokes and applaud his boasting. But he wasn't getting that kind of
soundtrack from the military leaders in attendance.
In keeping with the nonpartisan tradition of the armed services, the
military leaders sat mostly stone-faced through Trump’s politicized
remarks, a contrast from when rank-and-file soldiers cheered during
Trump’s speech at Fort Bragg this summer.
Trump encouraged the audience at the outset of his speech to applaud as
they wished. He then added, “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can
leave the room — of course, there goes your rank, there goes your
future.” Some laughed.
Before Trump took the stage, Hegseth said in his nearly hourlong speech
that the military has promoted too many leaders for the wrong reasons,
based on race, 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,”
Hegseth said.
That was echoed by Trump: “The purposes of America military is not to
protect anyone’s feelings. It’s to protect our republic.″
″We will not be politically correct when it comes to defending American
freedom,” Trump said.
Several military officials and rank-and-file troops, who all spoke on
condition of anonymity to avoid retaliation, said they were unsure how
the remarks from Trump and Hegseth would affect their daily lives in the
service. Some expressed concerns over the framing of domestic unrest as
a war, while some also said they found Hegseth’s message appealing about
more closely adhering to fitness standards and cutting out unnecessary
training.
Sen. Jack Reed, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee,
called the meeting “an expensive, dangerous dereliction of leadership.”
“Even more troubling was Mr. Hegseth’s ultimatum to America’s senior
officers: conform to his political worldview or step aside,” Reed said
in a statement, calling it a “profoundly dangerous” demand.
Trump's use of the military on American soil
Trump has already tested the limits of a nearly 150-year-old federal
law, the Posse Comitatus Act, that restricts the military’s role in law
enforcement.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, center, sitting with Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, third from right,
and U.S. military senior leadership as they listen to President
Donald Trump speaks at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Tuesday, Sept.
30, 2025 in Quantico, Va. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
He has sent National Guard and active duty Marines to Los Angeles,
threatened to do the same to combat crime and illegal immigration in
other Democratic-led cities, and surged troops to the U.S.-Mexico
border.
National Guard members are generally exempt from the law because
they're under state control. But the law does apply when they’re
“federalized” and put under the president’s control, as happened in
LA over the Democratic governor’s objections.
Trump said the armed forces also should focus on the Western
Hemisphere, boasting about carrying out military strikes on boats in
the Caribbean that he says targeted drug traffickers.
Loosening disciplinary rules
Hegseth said he's easing disciplinary rules and weakening hazing
protections, focusing on removing many of the guardrails the
military put in place after numerous scandals and investigations.
He also said he was ordering a review of “the department’s
definitions of so-called toxic leadership, bullying and hazing to
empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or
second guessing.”
He called for changes to "allow leaders with forgivable, earnest or
minor infractions to not be encumbered by those infractions in
perpetuity.”
“People make honest mistakes, and our mistakes should not define an
entire career,” Hegseth said.
Bullying and toxic leadership have been the suspected and confirmed
causes behind numerous military suicides over the past several
years, including of Brandon Caserta, a young sailor who was bullied
into killing himself in 2018.
Gender-neutral physical standards
Hegseth used the platform to slam environmental policies and
transgender troops. The Pentagon has been told from previous
administrations that “our diversity is our strength,” Hegseth said,
calling that an “insane fallacy.”
Hegseth said the military would ensure “every designated combat arms
position returns to the highest male standard.” He's previously
issued directives for gender-neutral physical standards, even though
specific combat, special operations, infantry, armor, pararescue and
other jobs already require the same standards regardless of age or
gender. The military services were trying to determine next steps
and what, if anything, may need to change.
Hegseth said it is not about preventing women from serving.
“If women can make it, excellent; if not, it is what it is. If that
means no women qualify for some combat jobs, so be it," he said.
"That is not the intent, but it could be the result.”
Sen. Joni Ernst, an Iowa Republican who served in the Iraq War, said
Hegseth was “appropriate” in suggesting that women should be
expected to meet certain standards.
“I’m not worried about that,” Ernst said. “There should be a same
set of standards for combat arms."
Janessa Goldbeck, who served in the Marines and is now CEO of the
Vet Voice Foundation, said Hegseth’s speech was more about “stoking
grievance than strengthening the force.”
Hegseth “has a cartoonish, 1980s, comic-book idea of toughness he’s
never outgrown,” she said. “Instead of focusing on what actually
improves force readiness, he continues to waste time and taxpayer
dollars on He-Man culture-war theatrics.”
Hegseth's speech came as the country faces a potential government
shutdown this week and as he has taken several unusual and
unexplained actions, including ordering cuts to the number of
general officers and firings of other top military leaders.
___
Finley and Toropin reported from Washington. Associated Press
writers Eric Tucker, Chris Megerian, Adriana Gomez Licon, Ali
Swenson and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.
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