Overview
- Speaking Tuesday aboard the USS George Washington in Yokosuka, President Trump told service members he is prepared to go beyond National Guard deployments to ensure what he called safe cities.
- Since June, the administration has sent Guard units to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C., while courts have blocked or limited attempts to dispatch forces to Portland and Chicago, and Marines were briefly used in Los Angeles to protect federal assets, according to Reuters.
- Trump has left open invoking the Insurrection Act to deploy active-duty troops for policing, a step that would sidestep some court orders but test longstanding legal limits under Posse Comitatus.
- Retired military leaders and defense commentators condemned the rally-style address to troops as politicizing the armed forces, with retired Gen. Barry McCaffrey saying such conduct would get an officer removed.
- Trump also defended recent U.S. strikes on boats and semi-submersibles in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that officials acknowledge killed 57 people, citing them as proof of a tougher approach.