US President Donald Trump has told US troops he was prepared to send “more than the National Guard” into US cities if needed, in the latest demonstration of his willingness to escalate a confrontation with Democratic-led local governments which oppose the deployments.
Trump delivered his remarks on Tuesday aboard the George Washington aircraft carrier, which was docked at the Yokosuka naval base near Tokyo. His speech, which occasionally touched on partisan issues, was interrupted by applause and cheers from the troops several times.
Trump since June has deployed National Guard troops to various Democratic-led jurisdictions in an extraordinary expansion of the use of the military for domestic purposes. Trump has sent them to Los Angeles, Memphis and Washington, D.C., and is waging court battles to try to dispatch them to Portland and Chicago.
In Los Angeles, Trump also took the rare step of deploying active duty Marines, although their job was to protect federal agents and federal property and they have since been withdrawn. Trump has left open the possibility that he might use the centuries-old Insurrection Act to deploy active duty troops for policing purposes and sidestep any court rulings blocking the dispatch of Guard troops into American cities.
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