It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, September 30, 2025
Trump’s Latest Big Lie: ‘Radical Left Violence’
The GOP is using this lie to censor speech, ban comedians and commentators, prosecute people who’ve spoken out against Trump, violently attack protesters, and to justify the monopolization of our media by right-wing billionaires.
U.S. President Donald Trump gestures as he speaks during an event at the Kennedy Center on August 13, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
US President Donald Trump’s assault on our elections system and the GOP’s successful 2024 effort to deny at least (according to official US government statistics) 4.2 million Americans their right to vote (which gave Trump the election and Republicans the House and Senate) was based on his 2020 Big Lie that our elections were corrupted by “millions” of “illegals” voting, along with “massive” voter fraud.
They’re continuing that Big Lie (which the GOP first embraced in the 1960s with Operation Eagle Eye that intimidated mostly Hispanic and Native American voters) going forward, with some observers expecting as many as 10 million Americans being denied their vote in 2028.
But corrupting and stealing elections was just their first effort, starting back in the 1960s, the one that brought them to power. Now, with that power, they’re doing their best to gut the basic guardrails of our 250-year-old constitutional system with brand-new Big Lies.
The newest Big Lie for 2025 is that America is racked by “radical left violence” leading to the disintegration of law and order in our cities and the spread of terror among politicians and anybody else who dares speak out about the issues of our day.
Republican Big Lies have caused enormous damage, from FDR’s era through Joe McCarthy’s witch hunts to George W. Bush lying us into two illegal and unnecessary wars to today.
They’re using this to censor speech, ban comedians and commentators, prosecute people (including lifelong Republicans like Comey, Krebs, and Taylor) who’ve spoken out against Trump, violently attack protesters, and to justify the monopolization of our media by right-wing billionaires.
Most recently, when a Trump-supporting (Trump sign in his yard, Trump “Make Liberals Cry Again” T-shirt) straight, white, self-proclaimed Christian who thought Mormons were the anti-Christ murdered worshipers in a Latter Day Saints church in Michigan, Trump’s first response was to claim it was “anti-Christian violence.”
Instead, it appears this former Marine war vet with PTSD thought he was defending Christianity. But instead of asking if he was “radicalized” by preachers like Trump’s guy “Pastor” Robert Jeffress (who goes on and on about how the LDS Church is a “false religion”) or the algorithms on YouTube, Facebook, or X, right-wing media is today filled with rants about “attacks on Christianity,” blaming “the left” even for this attack.
It echo’s the GOP’s efforts to portray the two people who tried to assassinate Trump, Charlie Kirk’s killer, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) shooter last week, and other political violence as originating from the “radical left.”
Which is really and truly another Big Lie.
First, there’s basically no “radical left” in America anymore. The anti-capitalist pro-violence subset of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that I knew back in the 1960s when I was part of Michigan State University’s SDS are long gone and well discredited (and a few imprisoned).
Second, the “far left” folks who are still around aren’t violent, by and large. Lefties are more interested in protecting Social Security, getting a national healthcare system into place, raising taxes on the morbidly rich, and getting guns off the streets instead of pointing them at people. The last high-profile “leftie” shooter was the mentally ill guy who took a shot at Republican Congressman Steve Scalise back in 2017.
Even the FBI and the Department of Justice themselves had acknowledged the fact that the vast majority of politically-inspired violence in America was coming from the right, at least until puppy-killer Kristi Noem or one of her lickspittles (or her boyfriend) ordered the reports removed from the government websites.
The independent and nonpartisan Center for Strategic and International Studies analyzed 893 terrorist plots that took place between 1994 and 2020. Their report concluded: Right-wing attacks and plots account for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994.
But don’t expect to hear that from anybody in the administration or on Fox “News” or other right-wing media outlets. Instead, they’re using “far left violence” as their excuse to dismantle our rights, impose soldiers on cities run by Democrats, and pour your tax dollars into extreme policing and militarization of our society.
This isn’t the first time the GOP has used the Big Lie technique to sway public opinion in a way that demonizes Democrats. On September 23, 1944 President Franklin D. Roosevelt addressed the Teamsters and said: “he opposition in this year has already imported into this campaign a very interesting thing, because it is foreign. They have imported the propaganda technique invented by the dictators abroad.
Remember, a number of years ago, there was a book, Mein Kampf, written by Hitler himself. The technique was all set out in Hitler’s book—and it was copied by the aggressors of Italy and Japan.
According to that technique, you should never use a small falsehood; always a big one, for its very fantastic nature would make it more credible, if only you keep repeating it over and over and over again.
He then did what Democrats—and what honest news media we have left—need to be doing today: He called out their lies and exposed their technique: Well, let us take some simple illustrations that come to mind. For example, although I rubbed my eyes when I read it, we have been told that it was not a Republican depression, but a Democratic depression from which this Nation was saved in 1933.
That this Administration—this one today—is responsible for all the suffering and misery that the history books and the American people have always thought had been brought about during the twelve ill-fated years when the Republican party was in power.
He followed that with a list of four other Republican lies, including their assertion that he’d tried to get America into WWII, that he was secretly planning to prevent GIs from leaving the service when the war was over, and even a lie about his dog (Fala, after which his speech was named in the press). He summed it up: Well, I think we all recognize the old technique. The people of this country know the past too well to be deceived into forgetting. Too much is at stake to forget.
They’re still doing it. Which raises the question: What will be Trump’s and the GOP’s next Big Lie?
They’ve already tried convincing Americans that:Immigrants are a major source of crime (when crime rates regarding immigrants are about half that of natural born Americans); Democrats are the party of rapists and pedophiles (ahem…Trump’s “best friend” Jeffrey Epstein, E Jean Carroll); Democrats want to defund the police (when they’re fighting for more cops in virtually every city in America); Are in favor of abortion “after birth”; That former President Joe Biden wanted to ban gas stoves and gasoline cars; Biden wanted to “ban meat“; Democrats plan on huge tax increases on the middle class; ”Antifa” (“Anti-Fascist”) is a domestic terrorist organization; Democrats are “deranged pieces of shit”; and Liberals want to “force taxpayers to fund transgender surgeries for minors’ nationwide” and, yesterday, Trump said Democrats want to “reopen the wall.“
This after promoting the Big Lie that got three police officers killed and 140 hospitalized on January 6 about the 2020 election was “stolen” and their Big Lie about immigrants voting that resulted in over 4 million citizens being denied their right to vote last year.
Republican Big Lies have caused enormous damage, from FDR’s era through Joe McCarthy’s witch hunts to George W. Bush lying us into two illegal and unnecessary wars to today.
It’s way past time that Democrats and the media start calling these Big Lies exactly what they are, and pointing out that the strategy originated in the modern era with Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler.
Enough is enough.
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Thom Hartmann Thom Hartmann is a talk-show host and the author of "The Hidden History of Monopolies: How Big Business Destroyed the American Dream" (2020); "The Hidden History of the Supreme Court and the Betrayal of America" (2019); and more than 25 other books in print. Full Bio >
Is This the Beginning of the End for US Democracy?
In Portland, in 2025, we hear echoes of the same beginnings of dictatorships everywhere: protesters recast as “terrorists,” and enemies within, and federal troops poised to turn against us.
Protesters march on September 28, 2025 in Portland, Oregon.
I covered dictatorships for CNN. Now, I recognize the first act. First come the words: “war,” “domestic terrorists,” “full-force.” Then the decrees: control, discipline, submission. Authoritarianism is not improvised; it is scripted. Now, as I sit in a Portland cafe, doomscrolling headlines about my own home, I am struck by an eerie parallel: the incipient rumblings of the Syrian civil war. Bashar al-Assad’s crackdown did not begin with barrel bombs and chemical weapons. It began with a few scattered protests, anti-government graffiti tagged on a schoolyard wall in Daraa, and a branding of dissenters as enemies of the state.
As I glance outside the window, a farmers’ market thrives, and children ride bikes through an archway of late summer blooms. The city feels as it always has to me: alive, quotidian, and safe. A few blocks over, however, a different scene unfolds. Federal agents arrive as Department of Homeland Security (DHS) helicopters buzz over Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) field offices. Armored vehicles transform an otherwise ordinary boulevard into a landscape of occupation. .
As a dual citizen, born in Australia to an American bloodline, I always admired the US for the audacious democratic experiment that defined the modern world. But today, more than a decade after I first planned my move to the US, I am now planning a just-in-case escape route from Portland, through Washington state, toward the Canadian border. Maps bookmarked, gas tank kept full, passports always within reach. I am, after all, a persona non grata: a journalist, a CNN “fake news” alumnus no less. US President Donald Trump has said of journalists: “I would never kill them but I do hate them.” Cold comfort.
Since leaving CNN, I have also written in opposition to the current administration following the Supreme Court’s dismantling of Roe, and for the rights of the unhoused during the Trump administration’s punitive measures in Washington, DC. I have confronted the rhetoric and policies that strip the vulnerable of rights and recognition. In 2025 America, my voice puts a target on my back. Still, on October 18, I will take to the streets of Portland, joining millions across some 2,000 cities to remind those in power of a truth older than the republic itself: America has no kings.
The question now is not whether Americans can hear the warning bell of authoritarianism, but whether they will heed it before it is too late. History reminds us that totalitarianism seldom arrives as a cataclysm, and instead as a creeping normalization of rhetoric that softens us for what’s to come. Scholars call it “democratic backsliding”: slow, at first, mundane and almost imperceptible. Death by a hundred incremental erosions. When state legislatures in the US criminalize gender-affirming care, they echo morality laws of the junta-run nation of Mali, where both same-sex couples and their tacit neighbors will now be persecuted. Women’s autonomy shrinks here under abortion bans; in Afghanistan, the rollback began with veils and movement restrictions. When late-night show hosts vanish from screens here, recall Bassem Youssef’s forced exile in Egypt.
It often starts with “us-versus-them,” and a chorus of dehumanizing labels like “invaders,” “illegals,” and “animals”; in Nazi Germany, Jewish immigrants were called “rats” and “parasites.” For those there, who went about their lives, choosing not to react to each stroke of a pen and press release, each edict alone no doubt felt survivable. But together, when left unchallenged, they would go on to suffocate and extinguish all aspects of democratic freedom, with consequences for the entire populace, not just those initially marked.
When President Trump flirts (however flippantly) with the idea of extending his presidential term beyond the 22nd Amendment, we know enough to infer that intimations are rarely benign. He is borrowing from the authoritarian playbook: the normalization of permanent rule. Consider Russia’s Vladimir Putin: First democratically elected in 2000, he soon discovered how to exploit constitutional loopholes. By orchestrating the Medvedev interregnum, he reset the clock on term limits, ultimately turning Russia’s democratic process into a seat of his own self-serving and indefinite rule. Or Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Turkey: Once the symbol of democratic Islamic governance, he hollowed out systems of checks and balances from within until term limits collapsed.
American history books teach us that the authority of this nation flows upward, not downward, from its people, not its rulers. And yet, in Portland, we have watched how federal power can be deployed domestically under the banner of “order.” In 2018, the city became the cradle of Occupy ICE, where protesters against family separation shut down a local ICE facility, leading to copycat demonstrations in other cities. In 2020, the administration sought to forestall another public humiliation. Under “Operation Diligent Valor,” protesters were dragged into unmarked vans and state-sanctioned tear gas choked downtown blocks. Civil-liberties groups, legal scholars, and local officials condemned these moves as escalatory and extrajudicial; Portland’s mayor called it a “federal occupation.”
Assad had once labelled early dissenters “armed terrorist gangs” to justify his violent crackdowns and later the systematic extermination of his own citizens. In Portland, in 2025, we hear echoes of the same beginnings: protesters recast as “terrorists,” and enemies within, and federal troops poised to turn against us. Today it is Portland. Tomorrow, it could be any city that dares to dissent.
The question now is not whether Americans can hear the warning bell of authoritarianism, but whether they will heed it before it is too late. The only sustainable reply is peaceful defiance: citizens assembling in public forums, online and off, and insisting on their rights. History shows that authoritarian rule falters when met with unified resistance, and even the most persistent forces struggle to withstand a people’s refusal to kneel.
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Amy La Porte Amy is an Emmy-nominated writer, producer, and former CNN television reporter. She now leads a nonprofit organization and has taught journalism and communications theory at several universities in Australia and the United States. Full Bio >
The US Must Unite in Nonviolent Insurgency to Stop Trump A government changes its behavior when a country becomes ungovernable.
Demonstrators holding signs and flags face California National Guard members standing guard outside the Federal Building as they protest in response to federal immigration operations in Los Angeles, on June 9, 2025. (Photo by Apu Gomes/AFP via Getty Images)
On July 17, I joined a group of Vermonters for a Good Trouble Lives On action in a village near where we were staying that month. Over the past 161 straight days, a small but determined contingent of mostly white, mostly grey-haired, mostly too-polite-to-make-much-trouble residents had been gathering at noon to protest US President Donald Trump’s policies on a little triangle of land where two streets meet in the village center. Their number had swelled to several dozen on that very hot day, a significant turnout for a community of fewer than 1,000 people. The majority of those driving past us flashed their lights, waved, or nodded in support, including the driver of a giant Pepsi delivery truck. (Since signs asked drivers-by not to honk because the noise upset the neighbors, honkers, I was told, were the opposition.) A young organizer tried to start a chant of protest, but the majority made it clear that they preferred to stand quietly, and she gave up.
It was civil, respectful, and earnest—very Vermont and, as it should have been, lots of fun. In the midst of it, I found myself thinking about a conversation several days earlier with a woman I’ll call Laura, whom I’ve come to know over the summers we’ve spent in Vermont. She’d stopped by to say hello and chat. And though we usually steer clear of national politics, recognizing, I think, that our views on the subject don’t align particularly well, this time we ventured carefully into talk about Trump’s America the second time around. RECOMMENDED...
She told me that she didn’t see much difference. The stock market was still strong, and her groceries didn’t cost her much more when she went to shop.
She probably stands to benefit (as do I) from some of the revisions in tax legislation misnamed Donald Trump’s “One Big Beautiful Bill.” She claimed not to pay much attention to political news, and she’s hardly alone there. People’s lives are overburdened enough, or they simply find the news too upsetting. News about that bill was hard to miss, however.
It makes little sense to play by the rules when we have a president who doesn’t even think there are rules.
I told her about the Turkish graduate student at Tufts University (where I had taught journalism) who was nabbed on a street in my neighborhood in March by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, apparently guilty of nothing more than co-writing an op-ed on Palestine for the college newspaper, which no one reads, including the students there. Laura recognized my distress. ICE was preying on Vermonters then, too. Still, its predatory policies seemed far away from the serenity of our shared afternoon.
Laura is an older woman, highly educated, actively devout, intelligent, resourceful, good-humored, and a long-time resident of a community that struggles to balance its relative wealth with the neediness of surrounding communities. Although she lands on the side of the comfortable, most of her wealth seems to be in land on which taxes keep rising to the limit of what she can afford. She’s deeply invested in local politics when it comes to housing and taxes in her area and particularly the tensions between longstanding Vermonters and newer arrivals. The newcomers—“We call them the stroller mafia,” she told me—pushed through new taxes aimed at curbing short-term rentals to tourists that limit the already-scarce housing available to residents. It was a laudable goal, but bad news for many longtime residents, including some of Laura’s friends who rely on the income from renting out extra rooms in the big houses they bought long ago.
Vermont, for people who have never been there, is cows, multicolored leaves, and Bernie Sanders. Its politics do lean notably progressive, but 10% of Vermonters still live in poverty. The state also suffered devastating floods in 2 of the last 3 summers, and it struggles to pay for adequate education and healthcare for its inhabitants. In other words, it’s like all too many other states, just smaller and with more maple syrup.
I like and respect Laura. Still, while I was patting myself on the back for finding common ground with someone I had classified as “on the other side”—that generous and high-minded territory we’re supposed to seek out in these uncommon and ungenerous times—I had to acknowledge that civility only gets you so far. I struggle to believe that a shared gripe or a joke about the absurdities of American politics brings us closer to agreeing on tax policy or a viable safety net for poor Americans or the humane treatment of immigrants, because common ground is not common cause and that’s what matters now.
It’s not important, maybe not even desirable, that Laura and I agree on everything. Still, in these grim Trumpian times, until reasonable, caring people like her start to reckon with the draconian policies raining down on our heads, as well as on the heads of people without papers and on neighboring Vermonters who stand to lose their healthcare and more in the years to come, I fear that the policies coming out of Washington will only get endlessly meaner and more destructive.
So, there I was, in common cause with those stalwart protesters, cheering the friendly drivers and flashing everyone the peace sign, and all I could think was: This shit is not working.
Beyond Civility
Neither has much else we’ve tried. Letter writing? Laura would toss out mail from someone she doesn’t know. Phone banking? She’d hang up. (So would I, which is why I no longer make those calls.) Door knocking? Vermont’s small congressional delegation is already left of center, and voters tend to like their own representatives, even when they dislike Congress as a whole, giving incumbents a significant advantage. So, while flipping Congress to the Democrats would revive the possibility of checks and balances, I’m leery of putting too many of my hopes into next year’s midterm elections.
I’m cautious, too, about trusting the rule of law when, despite many favorable lower court rulings, the arc of the Supreme Court seems to bend ever more Trumpward. And sure, so many of us can keep harping on the Epstein files, since that scandal is creepy and (let’s admit it) deliciously dirty, but I doubt any new disclosures—no matter what they reveal—will bring about Donald Trump’s downfall any more readily than his other messes have.
How about congregating in some public arena with thousands (tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions?) of people who already agree with me? May such communal resistance continue to grow in size, commitment, and wit. Building a movement takes time, and such demonstrations bolster solidarity and help create more resistance. So far, however, even the largest protests appear to have dented Trump’s consciousness only in leading him to want to charge George Soros with racketeering for supposedly financing them.
I can sign every petition and read every email from organizations I admire and others I’ve never heard of, each proclaiming calamities scarier than the last one—and then, of course, asking for a donation. And I am scared. Just hearing the words “Stephen Miller” or “Laura Loomer” sends my blood pressure soaring, but I suspect that neither hypertension nor money are the keys to the sea change our political culture needs. The problem isn’t just the challenge of getting Trump to pay attention. It’s that the kinds of political activism I’m used to (and that have been effective in the past) no longer get enough Americans worked up enough, or inconvenience them enough, to take on Trump and his agenda. Strategic Thinking
To succeed, a political campaign generally needs specific, clear, and easy-to-grasp goals and a nimble strategy where benchmarks can be set and progress charted. (Probably a good soundtrack too, but that’s another matter.) What we have now, on the other hand, is a sprawling outcry against a slew of unbelievably rotten policies and a wildly out-of-control president. God knows, there are enough rotten policies, not to speak of corruption and mendacity, to keep everyone busy, and a mass movement does need to be widely inclusive. But the misgovernance extends beyond Donald Trump, and simply excoriating him and dreading autocracy isn’t faintly enough.
It shouldn’t be hard to come up with some goals that would be widely shared. For starters, a healthy economy, affordable (evidence-based) healthcare, decent schools, and breathable air are all basic necessities being visibly undermined by this administration. Nonetheless, in this all too strange Trumpian world of ours, it’s proving all too hard to find a winning strategy—especially given that so much of what’s coming out of Washington falls into the category of (to borrow a favorite Trump phrase) never-seen-anything-like-it-before (at least when it comes to both intensity and sheer looniness). It makes little sense to play by the rules when we have a president who doesn’t even think there are rules, except for whatever ones he makes on the spur of the moment to support his own whims, prejudices, and self-interest.
So, what if the strategy is not to change Trump’s mind (good luck on that!), but to change the public’s mind?
Pillars Prop Up, Pillars Can Crumble
Which brings me to the consent theory of power, a favorite of theorists and agitators from way back, updated by Gene Sharp, an advocate of nonviolent resistance. For those who want to change the mess we’re in, that seems to me the way to go, as injury to people—in fact, personal or mob violence of any sort—is counterproductive, not to mention wrong. The recent murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk was a distinct reminder (not that we should have needed one) of where extreme intolerance of opposing ideologies from all directions all too often leads.
Add to that the finding of political scientists Erica Chenoweth and Maria Stephan that, historically speaking, nonviolent resistance has been more successful than violent campaigns. In that context, Sharp’s pragmatic strategies for noncompliance can be considered an active, peaceful response to the sense of powerlessness that authoritarians like “our” president aim to foster. According to Sharp, “The rulers of governments and political systems are not omnipotent, nor do they possess self-generating power.” Their power to keep a country functioning, he stresses, relies on the cooperation and obedience of those they govern. And that’s their vulnerability, too, because the governed can undermine the power of their rulers by withdrawing that very compliance and assistance.
In the consent theory, political power is seen as an inverted triangle balanced on its point and kept from tipping over by various supporting pillars, including the police, the military, media organizations, businesses, schools, and civic and religious groups. Dissidents are encouraged to think of ways to get members of those institutions and groups to disengage or defect until those pillars become unstable and cause the triangle of power to at least tilt, if not topple. An obvious barrier to enlisting those pillars to challenge the status quo is, of course, that many of them are the status quo. Just think, for instance, of the tech billionaires in full grovel mode to Donald Trump. But since it doesn’t take every pillar or even universal defiance in any one pillar to weaken a government like his, focusing on the most persuadable of his followers, along with the fence-sitters, is a place to start.
If the grassroots action is sustained and substantial, if it really is inconvenient enough, he might indeed have to deal.
Obvious forms of noncooperation include boycotts or strikes, but that’s just a beginning. (Sharp suggested 198 methods.) For instance, federal government workers withheld their consent earlier this year by ignoring Elon Musk’s time-wasting demand for weekly emails listing their accomplishments. And what began as a kind of unorganized grassroots opposition worked its way up (as such things often do) to a few department heads who, of course, then took credit for the defiance.
Refusal can be powerful, allies are sometimes found in surprising places, and small actions have a tendency to multiply.
Here’s an example from elsewhere: In 2020, after the Polish government stripped its judges of procedural power and independence, they donned their legal regalia and took to the streets of Warsaw, along with hundreds of jurists from 22 European countries and about 30,000 citizens in a mass protest that came to be called the 1,000 Robes March. It took a few more years and additional pressures to unseat the ruling party, but the symbolism was stunning and effective. While it might be hard to imagine berobed American judges marching through our streets in protest, not so long ago it was hard to imagine a president thumbing his nose at their rulings.
Such resistance requires savvy planning and sharp thinking, though not necessarily centralized leadership. And while some challenges to power include individual defiance, Sharp argues that, “If the rulers’ power is to be controlled by withdrawing help and obedience, the noncooperation and disobedience must be widespread.” In other words, what’s needed in America now is a nonviolent insurgency, one that enlists all those folks holding clever signs on that grassy sward in Vermont and all the drivers flashing their lights in solidarity, not to speak of that Pepsi truck driver (as well as Coke truck drivers) and even some modest portion of the drivers who honked in opposition. (Don’t at least a few have buyer’s remorse by now?) And don’t forget those people passing by in embarrassed silence and everyone like them across the country and their friends and relatives, all refusing to go along until their demands are addressed. Think of it—it could happen—as an epidemic of passive aggression against a brazenly aggressive president.
Noncooperation, nonviolent as it is, isn’t without risks, and you can bet Trump would respond to any organized, widespread challenge with a hissy fit of historic proportions and a slew of punitive, repressive executive orders. But he’s also been known to cave in to pushback, as bullies often do. (TACO—yep, Trump always chickens out—anyone?) If the grassroots action is sustained and substantial, if it really is inconvenient enough, he might indeed have to deal. His deal offers are, of course, invariably one-sided and self-serving, but as he loses power, so too will he lose the capacity to make deals solely on his terms.
Sharp’s strategy reminds me of a prediction Charley Richardson, a very good troublemaker who cofounded Military Families Speak Out, made to me long ago. A government changes its behavior, he told me, when a country becomes ungovernable. My question is: When will that happen in the latest version of Donald Trump’s America?
Nan Levinson Nan Levinson, a Boston-based journalist, reports on civil liberties, politics, and culture. Her book, "War Is Not a Game: The New Antiwar Soldiers and the Movement They Built" (2014), is about the recent G.I. antiwar movement. She is the author of "Outspoken: Free Speech Stories" (2006), was the U.S. correspondent for Index on Censorship, and teaches journalism and fiction writing at Tufts University. Full Bio >
‘Deeply Un-American’: Trump Tells Generals to Use US Cities as Military ‘Training Grounds’
“Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return,” warned one critic, who said the president’s alarming rhetoric “comes right out of the fascism playbook.”
President Donald Trump told hundreds of senior military commanders Tuesday that the country is “under invasion from within” and that they should use American cities as “training grounds” to target domestic “enemies”—remarks that drew warnings of encroaching fascism as the president expands his invasion and occupation of US communities.
Speaking to nearly 800 US generals and admirals stationed around the world who were summoned to Quantico, Virginia by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a highly unusual assembly, Trump told military leaders they would be used against the American people.
“They’re vicious people that we have to fight,” the president said, referring in this case to critical journalists, whom he called “sleazebags.”
(Trump begins speaking at the 1:09:45 mark in the following video)
“Just like you have to fight vicious people, mine are a different kind of vicious,” he added.
Trump then said that cities “run by the radical left Democrats... San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles” are “very unsafe places, and we’re gonna straighten them out one by one.”
“And this is gonna be a major part for some of the people in this room,” he continued. “This is a war too. It’s a war from within.”
Referring to Hegseth, Trump said, “and I told Pete, “we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Responding to this, Naureen Shah, director of government affairs at the ACLU’s Equality Division, told Common Dreams that when Trump said “the enemy within,” he meant “those who disagree with him.”
“We don’t need to spell out how dangerous the president’s message is, but here goes: Military troops must not police us, let alone be used as a tool to suppress the president’s critics,” Shah said. “In cities across the country, the president’s federal deployments are already creating conflict where there is none and instilling profound fear in people who are simply trying to live their lives and exercise their constitutional rights. Our country and democracy deserve far better than this.”
Trump also said during his Tuesday speech that “only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within,” a false assertion given centuries of US imperialism and colonization, first in the Americas and then around the globe.
“We’re under invasion from within, no different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms—at least when they’re wearing a uniform you can take them out; these people don’t have uniforms,” Trump said. “But we are under invasion from within; we’re stopping it very quickly.”
He then turned his attention to “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it comes to common sense,” falsely accusing the previous administration of opening US borders to Venezuelans after that country’s government “emptied its prison population into our country.”
In another lie, Trump said that “Washington, DC was the most unsafe, the most dangerous city in the United States of America, and to a large extent, beyond.”
The president claimed that “we took out 1,700 career criminals” during his recently launched takeover of DC—almost certainly another false statement given that more than 80% of arrests made in the capital were for misdemeanor offenses, many of them immigration-related.
Trump said US troops are “following in a great and storied military tradition” of presidents who have deployed military forces against “domestic” enemies.
“Today, I want to thank every service member from general to private who’s helped secure the nation’s capital and make America safe for the American people,” he said, adding in another blatant lie that “we haven’t had a crime in Washington in so long.”
“We’re going into Chicago very soon,” he said, although Operation Midway Blitz is already underway in the city.
“How about Portland?” he asked, adding in a comment utterly divorced from reality that the laconic Oregon city “looks like a war zone.”
Trump ordered troops to invade Portland despite the city ranking 72nd in violent crime in the US, according to FBI data.
In an apparent moment of doubt, Trump asked during a Sunday NBC News interview, “Well wait a minute, am I watching things on television that are different from what’s happening?”
Recounting how Democratic Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek asked Trump to not deploy federal forces to Portland, Trump said during Tuesday’s speech that “unless they’re playing false tapes, this looked like World War II. Your place is burning down.”
Amid small-scale protests in Portland over Trump’s authoritarian Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) crackdown, Fox News aired a report conflating video footage from 2020 protests against the police murder of George Floyd with the recent images. Anti-ICE protesters have burned an American flag and set small street fires in Portland, but no structures have been burned down.
Trump also said that any anti-ICE protesters who throw objects at federal vehicles or agents can be met with unlimited force.
“You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do,” the president said.
Critics swiftly pushed back on Trump’s suggestion of using American cities as military “training grounds.”
Congressman Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), a former Marine Corps combat veteran who served multiple tours during the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, said on the social media site X that “today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of ‘leadership’ by two small, insecure men.”
“US cities should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military,” Moulton added. “There is no ‘enemy from within.’ The reputational and operational damage being done to our military will take years to undo.”
The Democratic Association of Secretaries of State said on social media, “This is authoritarian, unconstitutional, and a direct threat to our democracy.”
“Today’s speeches by Trump and Hegseth were weak portrayals of ‘leadership’ by two small, insecure men.”
Chris Rilling, a former senior official at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said on X: “Trump should be impeached for this statement alone. Period.”
Some legal experts noted that the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 prohibits use of the military for domestic law enforcement.
Leaders of the Not Above the Law Coalition—which includes progressive groups such as Public Citizen, MoveOn, and Stand Up America—called Trump’s remarks “deeply un-American.”
“This dangerous rhetoric delivered during an unprecedented gathering reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of our military’s purpose and the people it serves,” the coalition co-chairs said. “Make no mistake: This isn’t about public safety—it’s about turning our own military into a force to be used against Trump’s perceived political opponents or anyone who questions his administration.”
“Americans cannot stay silent when our leaders express plans to use our military against us,” they added. “We must reject any attempt to normalize this outrageous and unlawful directive.”
Observers abroad also expressed shock at Trump’s remarks.
“In Trump’s speech today, Trump mentioned something very dangerous: using US cities (Democrat-run, I bet) as US troops training ground,” said José Antonio Salcedo, a professor at University of Porto in Portugal. “This is definitely contrary to the US Constitution.”
“It comes right out of the fascism playbook that Project 2025 and its fringe lunatic authors have been advocating and planning,” he added. “Wake up, people, the US is fast approaching a point of no return.”
‘Fascism as a Playbook’: Trump Ripped for Saying U.S. Is ‘Under Invasion From Within’
US President Donald Trump departs after addressing senior military officers gathered at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, on September 30, 2025. (Photo by Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images)
President Donald Trump warned all 800 of America’s top military leaders that there is a “war from within” and that the nation is “under invasion” — not by armies in uniform, he said.
“America is under invasion from within, we’re under invasion from within,” the Commander in Chief told the generals and admirals assembled at Quantico, Virginia.
“No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don’t wear uniforms. At least when they’re wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don’t have uniforms. But we are under invasion from within.”
According to The Hill, Trump “said defending the homeland was the military’s ‘most important priority.’ He signaled that the leaders in the room could be tasked with aiding in federal interventions in Democratic-led cities like Chicago and New York City.”
“They’re very unsafe places, and we’re going to straighten them out one by one,” Trump continued. “And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within.”
Critics blasted the President.
Historian Federico Finchelstein, an expert on fascism, responded to the President’s remarks, writing: “The idea of the internal enemy was intrinsically connected to a notion about the inferiority, impurity, and treasonous nature of those who were considered different from the majority. Fascists disputed the idea that citizenship defined the community.”
Russian political activist Garry Kasparov warned: “And with ‘the enemy within’, and legitimizing violence, even declaring war, against it, Trump is officially using textbook descriptions of authoritarianism and fascism as a playbook.”
Arizona Democratic State Senator Priya Sundareshan wrote: “Completely unAmerican to reference US citizens and yearn for less due process to ‘take them out.'”
Other critics pointed to Trump’s recent executive order declaring Antifa a “domestic terrorist organization.”
This chilling Trump directive is the thought police on steroids
Donald Trump welcomes Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Donald Trump and many of the people surrounding him have become explicit threats to what’s left of our democratic republic. And now they’re saying that my (or your) simply saying those words may be enough to get us locked up or otherwise legally, financially, or physically destroyed.
In 1964, like Hillary Clinton, I went door-to-door with my dad for Barry Goldwater, and later read both of his autobiographies, Conscience of a Conservative and With No Apologies. There’s no way Goldwater — or any Republican of that era — would tolerate the ways Trump and his toadies are ripping apart our constitutional order and flagrantly violating our laws and traditions.
And now he’s trying to pick a Made-For-Fox “News” fight in Portland. If one kid throws a Molotov cocktail, it will become the justification for another massive loss of our constitutional rights of free speech and assembly all across the nation. Cheered on by rightwing media for profit.
If Republicans don’t stand up soon and impeach Trump — and demand Vance reflect the traditional values of republican democracy or similarly face impeachment — history will judge them beyond harshly.
Trump is moving so fast, in fact, to turn America into an autocracy that this may be the GOP’s last chance to claw back the rule of law for our nation.
Democrats can’t do this themselves. Republicans control the House, Senate, and the Supreme Court, as well as a majority of the states. If our republic is to be saved, it’ll require at least a large handful of Republicans to step up and honor the oath to defend our Constitution they took when they were sworn into office.
Consider the ways Trump is tearing our nation apart, trying to pit us against each other and encouraging violence against constitutionally-protected free speech and protest.
Most recently, Trump signed a National Security Directive (this one is labeled as NSPM-7) saying that “anti-American” (aka “anti-Trump”) or “anti-Christian” rhetoric is — in Minority Report fashion — an indicator that a person may, in the future, commit a crime and therefore should be targeted now by our federal government at virtually every level.
National Security Directives are not like Executive Orders, which can be challenged. They’re often secret or even top secret documents that instruct the police and military branches of the federal government how to behave under certain circumstances.
Specifically, what they’re targeting with this one is our free speech right to criticize Trump and his administration. As journalist Ken Klippenstein reported on Saturday: “The Trump administration isn’t only targeting organizations or groups but even individuals and ‘entities’ whom NSPM-7 says can be identified by any of the following ‘indica’ (indicators) of violence: anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism, anti-Christianity, support for the overthrow of the United States Government, extremism on migration, extremism on race, extremism on gender, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on family, hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on religion, and hostility towards those who hold traditional American views on morality.”
This is the thought police, the speech police, the writing police on steroids. As Klippenstein notes, the directive says: “The United States requires a national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts…” (emphasis Ken’s)
Impeachment at this point isn’t optional. It’s the one constitutional mechanism designed for exactly this type of assault on the foundations of our democracy.
Consider Trump’s record:The January 6 insurrection and attempted assassination of our Vice President, incited by Trump himself, was an effort to overturn a lawful election. No greater betrayal of the Constitution exists. Indicting former FBI Director James Comey — and going after other former Republican officials including James Clapper and John Bolton — as acts of revenge shows his willingness to weaponize justice. Pressuring red states to gerrymander congressional maps reveals his contempt for free and fair elections. Deploying troops and masked secret police to U.S. cities to intimidate citizens undermines civil liberties. Harassing comedians like Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert signals his hostility toward free speech. Taking $2 billion from the UAE for his personal company as a blatant bribe in exchange for directing our government to sell that nation — which has joint military exercises with China — the AI chips that are forbidden to such foreign governments flaunts his corruption. Disappearing protesters off the streets erodes due process. Separating legal immigrant families and deporting brown-skinned legal residents tears at the moral fabric of our nation. Elevating conspiracy figures like Bob Kennedy at the CDC undermines public health. Rolling out the red carpet for Putin while abandoning allies like Ukraine weakens global democracy. Destabilizing the economy with chaotic and unconstitutional tariffs hurts working families. Escalating conflicts in Venezuela to the point of violence in international waters risks global war. Burying the Epstein list raises questions about corruption and blackmail.
There comes a time when history demands a choice. For Republicans, that time is now.
Donald Trump has attacked America’s democratic institutions, unleashed chaos at home and abroad, and put his own personal power and family financial interests above the Constitution and the good of our nation.
The only remedy is impeachment. Anything less is complicity.
Republicans control the entire federal government: they can’t pass this buck to anyone else. If they refuse to impeach Trump, they’ll go down in history as the party that enabled an authoritarian coup and ended America’s 250-year experiment with democracy.
If they do impeach him, they may well save both our nation, democracy around the world, and their own integrity. The stakes couldn’t be higher.
We all must help Republicans understand the cost of inaction. By refusing to impeach, they aren’t simply protecting Trump; they’re aligning themselves with his crimes. They’re staking the future of their party, their reputations, and possibly their own freedom on a man whose every instinct is authoritarian.
Failure to stand up to Trump at this critical moment could spell the end of the modern Republican Party. Voters may forgive bad policies like tax cuts for billionaires or gutting healthcare for average Americans, but dismantling democracy itself is an unforgivable sin.
Like the leaders of the Confederacy, they’ll stain their own names forever. Just like McCarthyism and segregation taint the legacies of past politicians, Trump’s stench will follow them down the echoing halls of history for all time. Their children and grandchildren will carry that shame forever.
Cracks are already appearing: current Republican members of Congress Thomas Massey and Marjorie Taylor Greene are defiantly demanding the release of the Epstein files. Ted Cruz, Don Bacon, and Rand Paul took on Trump when they objected to his attempt at censoring late-night comedians.
Former GOP politicians openly calling out Trump’s authoritarianism or opposing his previous candidacy because of his antidemocratic and unconstitutional behavior include Liz Cheney, Adam Kinzinger, Paul Ryan, Mitt Romney, John Boehner, Jeff Flake, Ben Sasse, Larry Hogan, Charlie Baker, Jeb Bush, Christine Todd Whitman, Tom Ridge, Charlie Dent, Barbara Comstock, Fred Upton, Joe Walsh, Will Hurd, Denver Riggleman, Susan Molinari, and Ken Buck.
Former senior Republican officials who’ve awakened to the danger Trump represents to our republic include James Mattis, Mark Esper, HR McMaster, John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, Bill Barr, John Kelly, Miles Taylor, Alyssa Farah Griffin, Olivia Troye, Stephanie Grisham, Sarah Matthews, and Anthony Scaramucci.
And former GOP leaders, strategists, consultants, and conservative thinkers who’ve called out Trump’s authoritarian behavior include Karl Rove, Bill Kristol, David Frum, Peter Wehner, Mona Charen, Charlie Sykes, Tim Miller, Amanda Carpenter, Lev Parnas, SE Cupp, George Will, Michael Steele, Joe Scarborough, Rick Wilson, Steve Schmidt, George Conway, Reed Galen, Mike Madrid, Jennifer Horn, Ron Steslow, Stuart Stevens, Tara Setmayer, Jeff Timmer, Chris Vance, and Fred Wellman.
As you can see, today’s elected Republicans — who hold the power of impeachment in their hands — are not without allies if they choose to take on Trump and impeach him from office.
And not without role models: from Theodore Roosevelt to Richard Nixon to Ronald Reagan, no previous president has ever openly proclaimed their “hatred” of Democrats or non-Republicans and set about to openly destroy the lives of those who’d opposed them or called them out.
If Trump isn’t held accountable, these could become the new norms for America and shatter our constitutional order. Republicans have spent decades waving “Don’t Tread on Me” flags and wearing slogans against government that reaches into individual lives with threats and intimidation. Will they stand up for our nation now?
Impeachment isn’t just a political strategy; it’s the last defense of our Constitution. Elected Republicans must act now, decisively and unapologetically. If they do, they may yet save America and themselves. To let them know, the phone number for the congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121.
If they fail, their legacy will be sealed forever. Not as patriots or conservatives, but as cowards willing to abandon the American experiment in exchange for momentary power and the praise of an autocrat.
‘No More Dudes in Dresses’: Hegseth Targets ‘Woke’ Diversity, ‘Nordic Pagans’ and ‘Beardos’
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth addressed hundreds of generals and admirals flown in from cross the globe, outlining his new standards for America’s armed forces: no focus on diversity, no race or gender quotas, no ban on toxic leaders and hazing, no “woke,” and no “beardos.”
“An entire generation of generals and admirals were told that they must parrot the insane fallacy that our diversity is our strength,” Secretary Hegseth declared. “Of course, we know our unity is our strength.
“They had to put out dizzying DEI and LGBTQI+ statements. They were told females and males are the same thing. Or that males who think they’re females are totally normal. They were told that we need a green fleet and electric tanks. They were told to kick out Americans who refuse an emergency vaccine,” he said.
“For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniformed leaders for the wrong reasons,” he continued. “Based on their race. Based on gender quotas. Based on historic so-called ‘firsts’. We’ve pretended that combat arms and non-combat arms are the same thing. We’ve weeded out so-called toxic leaders under the guise of double-blind psychology assessments, promoting risk-averse go-along-to-get-along conformists instead.”
“We became the Woke Department. But not anymore,” he vowed.
“This administration has done a great deal from day one,” the Defense chief also said. “To remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department. To rip out the politics.”
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses,” he said. “No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions. No more debris.”
“As I’ve said before, and will say again, we are done with that s–.”
Hegseth also made clear that he was returning to the days of the past in other ways.
“Basic training is being restored to what it should be: scary, tough, and disciplined. We’re empowering drill sergeants to instill healthy fear in new recruits. Ensuring that future war fighters are forged. Yes, they can shark attack, they can toss bunks, they can swear. And, yes, they can put their hands on recruits. This does not mean they can be reckless or violate the law, but they can use tried and true methods to ‘motivate,'” he said.
And he addressed “grooming standards,” declaring that beards are not allowed.
“No more beards, long hair, superficial individual expression. We gonna cut our hair, shave our beards, and adhere to standards. Because it’s like the broken windows theory of policing. It’s like, you let the small stuff go, the big stuff eventually goes. So you have to address the small stuff.”
“If you want a beard, you can join Special Forces. If not, then shave. We don’t have a military full of Nordic pagans, but unfortunately, we have had leaders who either refuse to call BS and enforce standards, or leaders who felt like they were not allowed to enforce standards.”
“And that’s why today, at my direction, the era of unprofessional appearance is over,” he professed. “No more beardos.”
Hegseth scolded on Fox News over televised speech: 'Something you'd see in China'
U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. In an unprecedented gathering, almost 800 generals, admirals and their senior enlisted leaders have been ordered into one location from around the world on short notice.
Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was scolded Tuesday by a Fox News host who said the Pentagon chief's televised speech reminded him of "something that might happen in China or North Korea."
Harold Ford, Jr., a former Democratic congressman from Tennessee and co-host of the Fox News show "The Five," talked about Hegseth's speech to the American military's top brass on Tuesday morning. During the meeting, Hegseth told military leaders that there would no longer be any "woke" policies and that the military would return to male-oriented standards.
"I didn't like the televised part of this," Ford said. "Because it reminded me of something that might happen in China or North Korea."
"If I were an adversary of the United States... and I'm watching this, I'm not convinced I would be more fearful of the United States or wanting to be more like them," he added.
Ford also took issue with the new moniker that Hegseth and President Donald Trump have come up with for the Department of Defense, calling it instead the Department of War.
"It should be called the Department of Deterrence," Ford said. "President Trump is the first president in my lifetime who openly talks about not wanting war, wanting to end wars, wanting to get people out of wars. Even when they're not Americans shedding blood, he has shown compassion on behalf of the Ukrainians and the Russians."
A tiny Pete Hegseth preaches to America's military giants
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
Longtime Pentagon reporter Helene Cooper said that she can't find any military officials who attended the meeting in Virginia with President Donald Trump and Secretary Pete Hegseth and liked what they heard.
"I have yet to find a single military official who was in the audience today who thought that this was a good presentation," she told MSNBC on Tuesday afternoon.
"All I've had from them so far, from the people I've talked to, is a combination of disbelief that some of them were made to fly from, some of them, Asia, from all over the world ... all the way to Quanico to listen to the same familiar type of culture war complaints that we've been having since Trump was reelected," she added, calling Trump's remarks a "campaign-style stump speech."
"Nothing that was said today could not have been put in an email or in a directive. So there's that, to begin with. There's also the fact that so much of this was partisan, and this is a military that is supposed to present itself as nonpartisan. So you didn't hear the kind of cheering that we usually get, because President Trump is used to playing for the type of crowds that favor him," Cooper explained. "And so he's not very used to performing in front of an audience that's just giving, looking back stone-faced. But that's what you were getting from these generals."
The other thing she noted is that she's gotten "so many emails from women in the military" who are seeing this as a message "that they are not welcome."
Hegseth has opposed having women in combat roles.
“I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective. Hasn’t made us more lethal. Has made fighting more complicated,” Hegseth told a podcast hosted by Shawn Ryan on Nov. 7, 2024.
U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth during a meeting of senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth sparked concerns with his unusual order summoning hundreds of military commanders to Virginia for an all-hands meeting — but it the speech by President Donald Trump that left onlookers really confused.
The president and his Pentagon chief pledged to end "woke" and "politically correct" policies they believe had undermined military readiness, but neither speech seemed to justify the extraordinary order summoning the top brass from posts around the world to a Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, in the eyes of many observers.
"Pete Hegseth has recalled America's top military leaders from around the world for a meeting that's livestreamed on Fox," said the Capitol Hunters account. "It truly could have been a Zoom call."
"It’s really funny that Hegseth’s little GI Joe fantasy league speech was met with… silence," noted writer Roxane Gay.
"I didn’t want America to go fascist. I think that is very bad," posted Nicholas Grossman, international relations professor at University of Illinois. "But I take some solace in the fact that we got such stupid, petty fascists, the sort who order an in-person meeting of military leaders not to execute a large-scale purge, but to make them listen to him wax philosophical about gender."
"I'm still thinking it out but it sort of feels like this is the only form a fascist project could take in the America of this century," replied Bluesky user First Wordle Problems. Entirely phony and aspirational, assembled from bits of popular culture and popular pyschology. With no mass following committed to it in any real way."
"Hegseth complained about fatties and beardos, and now Trump is bragging about the quality of stationary [sic] he uses," added historian Kevin Kruse. "Their 'warrior ethos' is all about appearances, nothing more. Which is ironic because Trump looks and sounds like a-- here."
"Trump is now saying (and I am not making this up) that the U.S. should build more battleships because of a black-and-white movie he likes," wrote journalist Philip Bump. "Trump notes than in World War II they were building a ship a day but we don't build ships anymore. Does he … not realize that the military needs of 2025 are different than those of 1945?"
"Everything else aside (and it’s a lot) he sounds 100 years old," noted MSNBC's Chris Hayes.
"A serving member of the military might be court-martialed for saying in public what Trump did here," argued journalist James Fallows, reacting to Trump disclosing the U.S. had recently deployed a nuclear submarine near Russia. "The entire *point* of super-quiet submarines is that adversaries do not know where they are. Navy goes to extreme lengths to conceal any clues to their location."
"Bombing my big stand-up special in front of a totally silent room of generals," joked writer David J. Roth. "'What else, what else. Bagram Air Force Base, we're going to do that again, okay? And we're going to do it the right way: through specific types of tattoos, and haircuts.'"
"Trump opens with a threat to the generals: 'I've never walked into a room so silent … Have a good time. And if you want to applaud, you applaud ... If you don't like what I'm saying, you can leave the room. Of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future. but you just feel nice and loose,'" notedMSNBC producer Kyle Griffith.
"There have been a lot of rubicons crossed, norms destroyed, principles abandoned, ideals betrayed over the past 10 months but this seems like a truly significant turning point," added historian Paul Cohen.
"Pathetic," sighed writer Gary Legum, reacting to Hegseth's remarks. "Just a pathetic, weak coward overcompensating for his deep insecurities."
"We all know this 'warfighters' talk isn't about convincing our military to do anything except kill more civilians, specifically American civilians," argued the LOLGOP account. "That's the only new thing here."
"If I were a would-be dictator whose only civilian check on power had been consumed by total-complete partisan loyalty, something I would definitely do is call an unprecedented in-person meeting of the only people who could stop me and then proceed to illustrate why they should stop me," wrote journalist Timothy Burke.
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'Dead silence': Observers cringe as Hegseth's 'FAFO' applause line lands with a thud
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025. Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's euphemistic applause line landed with a thud before an audience of top military brass — and the awkward pause did not go unnoticed on social media.
The defense secretary ordered hundreds of U.S. military leaders from around the world for an unusual gathering in Quantico, Virginia, where the former Fox News host regaled them with a pep talk on the "warrior ethos" he believes is currently lacking. A particular portion of the speech stood out to observers.
"Should our enemies choose foolishly to challenge us, they will be crushed by the violence, precision, and ferocity of the War Department," Hegseth said. "To our enemies, FAFO."
Hegseth spelled out the abbreviation, which is a genteelism for the phrase, "f--k around and find out," then paused for a moment surveying the room.
It remained silent – save for one audible "woohoo" – in keeping with Pentagon rules regarding speeches by military commanders.
"If necessary, our troops can translate that for you," the secretary added.
Social media users reacted to the content of Hegseth's speech and the reaction in the room.
“'To our enemies: FAFO,'" said the widely followed Tennessee Holler account. "Holds for applause that doesn’t come. Cringey awkward moment as Hegseth summons all generals to hear him do a one-man show about how strong we are."
"Him spelling out FAFO instead of saying f--k around and find out is parody," agreed Bluesky user Earl Verdant. "That he followed it with a pause and a grin like he was expecting applause is beyond parody."
"So he def keeps dropping lines he expects applause for and in the clips I watched there's dead silence every time. Has he gotten a zilch reaction the whole speech?" noted tech consultant Aram Zucker-Scharff. "A single person gives a lackluster cheer for FAFO."
"Enjoying myself imagining the thousand yard stares that all the four star generals must be greeting this with," posted The Atlantic's Helen Lewis.
"Major ROFL says FAFO. China responds YOLO. Rest of the world FUBAR," replied Bluesky user lucidbeaming.
"This is, no exaggeration, some of the most loser s--t i have ever seen in my life," said New York Times columnist Jamelle Bouie.
"These clips from the secretary’s speech have the same energy as a 9 year old boy who decided to start a secret club and is explaining to his friends why they should all call themselves 'the vipers' from now on," quipped Vox's Elias Isquith.
'I traveled 8K miles to hear this?' Retired general rips into Hegseth's 'canned' speech
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, U.S., September 30, 2025.
Andrew Harnik/Pool via REUTERS TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY
Retired Brig. Gen. Steve Anderson had nothing but scathing words on CNN Tuesday morning for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's all-hands speech to generals and admirals who had been called off their assignments from around the world to hear him speak — an event other experts have warned is an unnecessary security risk
"Have you heard anything that constitutes a change, or an announcement or a reason to be addressing the group in the room today?" asked anchor John Berman.
"I think that there's probably a lot of general officers sitting there right now muttering to themselves, I traveled 8,000 miles to hear this?" said Anderson. "I mean, this is essentially a canned speech that really could have been delivered by anybody in almost any time. But I think that there are some clues that he's leaving about refocusing on homeland security and taking away perhaps some of our forward presence in the strength of our alliances overseas. And that really concerns me."
"I mean, that has kept this world safe for 80 years," he continued. "I mean, the NATO alliance and the alliances that we have in Japan and Korea have kept this world relatively safe for a long time, and for us to come off on that would be a terrible, terrible mistake. And I think that there were probably a couple of clues that he left there to that regard.
"The other thing that he talked about was changing the culture and, you know, talking about accountability and responsibility. I mean, there's nothing like being lectured to by a reserve major about things like that. I mean, these guys can write books about their service and their sacrifice and the bravery that they have shown."
Ultimately, Anderson said, "If you talk about accountability, responsibility, he needs to start with himself. He should have resigned after the Signalgate disaster. We shared our classified secrets on an insecure line. Every single person in that room knows that they would have been fired had they done the same thing. So, I mean, this is really a sad moment in our history."
"I thin that the speech in what's going on right now is probably going to turn into a political rally for President Trump, but it's really all about trying to get the military to kowtow to them and their will," Anderson concluded. "And unfortunately, I think we're going to see a lot of that for the next hour or so."
