Trump vows to ‘straighten out’ San Francisco in rambling speech to military brass

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) — President Donald Trump namechecked San Francisco on Tuesday as being among the U.S. cities where he could potentially deploy the military. The president was at a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia where he delivered a lengthy, and at times, rambling, speech to top military commanders.

Although the United States military is by design, intended to handle foreign threats, Trump spoke of an “enemy from within,” while complaining about “insurrectionists” funded by “the radical left.”

“It’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” President Trump said. The president also seemed to imply he could deploy the military to a number of cities, including San Francisco.

“What they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles…. They’re very unsafe places,” Trump said to the gathered military leaders. “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.”

“It’s a war too,” he added. “It’s a war from within.”

“We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” Trump suggested at one point. At another he noted, “We’re under invasion from within. No different than a foreign enemy but more difficult in many ways because they don’t wear uniforms.”

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 in the crowd laughed.

Just eight months into his second term, and 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 enforcing domestic laws.

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, including Portland and Chicago, and surged troops to the U.S.-Mexico border.

National Guard members are generally exempt from the law since they are under state authority and controlled by governors.

Last week, Trump made similar remarks about pulling matches for next year’s FIFA World Cup out of Democrat-lead cities, including the SF Bay Area.

Trump’s remarks at the unusual gathering of hundreds of U.S. military leaders followed remarks from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. During his remarks, Secretary Hegseth announced directives that included “gender-neutral” or “male-level” standards for physical fitness along with an end to “woke” culture in the military.

“This speech should terrify anyone who cares about our country,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom tweeted in response to the speech. “Declaring war on our nation’s cities and using our troops as political pawns is what dictators do.”

“Training the military to ‘quell civil disturbances’ is another step toward authoritarianism,” tweeted State Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco). “Linking it to ‘the enemy from within’ is absolutely terrifying since that was the phrase Hitler used for Jews.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.