Trump threatens to send ‘more than the National Guard’ into US cities: ‘He desperately wants to seem strong’

“The man is an avowed racist and a fascist, and he is using all the tools at his disposal to sow racial discord in this country,” Ed Anderson of Common Defense told theGrio.

President Donald Trump escalated his threats to send troops to U.S. cities, telling thousands of military service members on Tuesday that he is prepared to send “more than the National Guard.”

“We have cities that are troubled; we can’t have cities that are troubled,” Trump told military troops stationed at a Naval base in Japan. “And we’re sending in our National Guard, and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard, because we’re going to have safe cities.”

Since taking office for his second term, Trump has deployed the National Guard in mostly cities run by Black mayors and with a majority Black and Brown residents, including Los Angeles, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. Despite opposition from Democratic governors, the president has justified his actions as necessary to quell violent crime and protect federal property amid protests against his mass immigration enforcement.

However, federal law places significant restrictions on how a president can legally use the military for domestic law enforcement, which is typically in the event of an insurrection, to suppress rebellions, or to enforce federal law.

Trump has also sent guardsmen to Portland, where, like in California and Illinois, he faced pushback from Oregon’s Democratic governor. However, the Republican governors of Tennessee and Louisiana welcomed Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in Memphis and New Orleans, which are also majority Black cities led by Black mayors. Many of Trump’s deployments are being slowed by lawsuits being challenged in federal courts.

“We’re not going to have people killed in our cities,” Trump told troops on Tuesday. “And whether people like that or not, that’s what we’re doing.”

More than disliking Trump’s plans, critics see it as a moral failure.

“What happened in Chicago, wrap repelling down into the apartment building that was occupied by mostly Black people, bringing Black and Brown children out in the dead of night with zip ties–this speaks directly to what he is trying to do,” said Ed Anderson, a military veteran and lead organizer for Common Defense.

He told theGrio, “The man is an avowed racist and a fascist, and he is using all the tools at his disposal to sow racial discord in this country.”

Trump has not-so-subtly indicated that sending the military to civilian American cities was his objective, including before his re-election. Anderson pointed to warnings from Trump’s former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman, General Mark Milley. Milley, who called Trump “fascist to the core,” shared that Trump envisioned having a military that was loyal to him more than the U.S. Constitution.

“Milley’s comments…seem to be holding true,” said Anderson.

President Trump’s latest remarks “increase the potential for trouble,” especially for cities with majority Black and Hispanic populations, said the veteran and advocate, particularly National Guardsmen from the South being sent to northern states.

Anderson stoically said that sending “active duty combat-poised troops” to U.S. cities is a “further example of the civil war and strife that he is hoping to create that will allow him to run for a third term.“

“It’s all a game to him,” he said. “He doesn’t understand what it means to put your life on the line or to lose a friend or life through a hostile action or something. He has no idea what that’s about, and it’s evident in everything that he’s doing.”

Marcus W. Robinson, a senior spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, told theGrio, “Donald Trump knows that his second term is an even bigger failure than the first — whether it’s his economic agenda or his cruel immigration policies.”

“He desperately wants to seem strong, even though the American people and other world leaders know the truth: he is a small, weak man,” said Robinson.

“So it is no surprise that on the day his economic approval tanks to the lowest in our nation’s history, he decides to threaten the illegal use of our armed services in American cities,” he continued.

“We have seen this playbook before, and we know it is going to fail, just like everything else he does.”