President Donald Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the military should use “dangerous” U.S. cities as “training grounds.”
Trump was speaking to top American military leaders who had gathered for a rare meeting at Quantico in Virginia.
The president was discussing his deployment of the National Guard to cities as part of his crackdown on crime and disorder, and stated that Chicago would soon see troops.
“I told Pete we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump said.
“Because we’re going into Chicago very soon,” he added, also launching into an attack on Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, whom he branded “incompetent.”
“Last week they had 11 people murdered, 44 people shot,” Trump continued. “The week before that they’d had five people murdered, 28 people shot.”
He also referenced pushback from Pritzker over the prospect of the military being deployed in the city: “They need the military, desperately,” Trump said.
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