Trump suggests 'dangerous' US cities should be used as 'training grounds' in speech to military leaders – live

And just like that, Donald Trump is speaking again! This time from the Oval Office and he’s making an announcement on medicine costs. I’ll bring you more on that shortly.

Here’s a roundup of what was in those astonishing speeches we just heard delivered to a mostly silent audience of top US military leaders by defense secretary Pete Hegseth and Donald Trump.

• Hegseth announced that the military will require combatants to meet the “highest male standard” in physical fitness tests. He acknowledged that this may exclude some women from serving. “Standards must be uniform, gender neutral, and high,” he said, and if that meant some women didn’t qualify, “it is what it is.”

• He ordered officers to focus on physical appearance and fitness, attacking what he called the “tiring” sight of “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals”. “It’s a bad look,” he said, adding that he was upping physical fitness testing to twice a year.

• He also said this was an end to the “era of unprofessional appearances” and announced that officers could no longer have beards.

• Hegseth vowed an end to diversity efforts and wanting to usher in a change to the “politically correct” culture of the military – which had made the DOD “the woke department” – and have a greater focus on “warrior ethos”. “We’re ending the war on warriors,” he said.

• Rallying against “woke”, he said they were “fixing decades of decay” by doing away with DEI programs, and ending the promotion of a “risk-averse” officer corps. He said troops had been distracted by political correctness, racial quotas, climate change, “gender delusions”, “woke garbage” and fears of being labeled as “toxic” leaders.

• He said the department would review its definitions of “toxic”, “bullying” and “hazing” “to empower leaders to enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing”. “The era of politically correct, overly sensitive, don’t-hurt-anyone’s-feelings leadership ends right now,” the defense secretary said.

• He announced wider departmental changes including ending anonymous complaints procedures. He said the DOD’s Inspector General’s Office (which is investigating him over Signalgate) would be “overhauled” as it had created a culture of “walking on eggshells” and had been “weaponized, putting complainers, ideologues and poor performers in the driver’s seat”. “No more frivolous complaints, no more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers, no more walking on eggshells,” he said.

• He justified his previous firing of senior commanders, saying that he went with “his gut” and got rid of those he believed wouldn’t shift away from policies set in previous administrations. He added that he was certain more leadership changes would be made.

• He told leadership that if the new standards he has unveiled makes their “hearts sink” then they should “do the honorable thing and resign”.

• In an at times free-wheeling speech, Donald Trump commented on the remarkable silence in the room before picking up on a number of these points, saying: “We went through political correct where you had to have people who were totally unfit to be doing what you’re doing,” he said. “Now it’s all based on merit.”

• Trump told his top military leadership that the US faced “a war from within”. Repeating his criticisms of Democrat-led US cities, claiming “they’re very unsafe places and we’re going to straighten them out one by one”, he added that “this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room”.

• He said so-called “dangerous cities” should be used as “training grounds” for military troops and the national guard. He suggested they were “going into Chicago very soon” and said Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone” [residents have said this is “entirely divorced from reality”].

• He said that Hegseth will soon announce “major reforms to streamline military acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales”, as many countries want to buy US military equipment but it needs to be made faster.

• Trump also said he’s contemplating making the military “larger” and his administration plans to make “more historic announcements” in the coming months to “fully embrace the identity of the Department of War”.

Well that was a lot. Stay tuned, I’ll post a summary of what we’ve just heard shortly.

He calls America “the most unstoppable force ever to walk the face of the Earth”.

He says his administration plans to make “more historic announcements” in the coming months to “fully embrace the identity of the Department of War”.

“I love the name. I think it’s so great. I think it stops wars,” Trump says. “The Department of War is going to stop wars.”

Trump says he’s debating making the military larger.

“We’re thinking about making it larger because we have so many people, and it’s nice to be able to cut people because of merit that aren’t really qualified for any reason, a physical reason, a mental reason, you don’t have to take them anymore, because you have, you have the pick of the litter, and they all want to be with you,” he says. “They all want your job. They want to be with you. They want to work with you. They’ll even take your job.”

Trump says Hegseth will soon announce “major reforms to streamline military acquisitions and expedite foreign military sales”.

“We have tremendous numbers of countries that want to buy our equipment, and you know, many cases, it takes too long. They’re backlogged,” Trump says.

He says that he told companies, “you better get your ass going,” because “we’re getting countries to buy your equipment”.

“We make the best equipment in the world, but they got to make it faster,” he adds.

He says “peace through strength” is back and that the US is respected again in the world.

He says the US was not respected under Biden, who was “falling down stairs every day” and adds that he is always careful when he walks down the stairs.

He says that if military or police vehicles are hit with bricks or other objects, that officers should “do whatever the hell” they want.

“You get out of that car, and you can do whatever the hell you want to do, because those people are, you now can die from that,” he says.

Portland, Oregon “looks like a war zone”, he says. “This place is a nightmare.” [Trump has authorized deployment of the national guard there but the city and state have sued the administration over the move.]

“It looks like a war zone, and I get a call from the liberal governor. ‘Sir, please don’t come in. We don’t need you.’ I said, ‘Well, unless they’re playing false tapes, this looks like World War II, your place is burning down’,” he says.

The Guardian’s Robert Mackey wrote about Portland at the weekend – and described Trump’s portrayal of the city as “entirely divorced from reality”.

He writes:

There were just four protesters outside the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) field office in an outlying residential neighborhood that the president had claimed was “under siege” by antifascists and “other domestic terrorists”. Jack Dickinson, 26, wore a chicken costume draped in an American flag and held a sign that read “Portland Will Outlive Him”. Passing motorists honked in appreciation.

Dickinson, who is from Portland and has helped organize the small but persistent protest at that location, which is going on three months, said he was not surprised to see Trump focus his attention on the city. But he called the president’s threat to have soldiers use “full force” against the protesters, whose numbers occasionally swell into the dozens, unwarranted.

“I told Pete [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, national guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon, that’s a big city with an incompetent governor,” the president says.

He criticizes Democrat-led cities like San Francisco, Chicago, New York and LA. “They’re very unsafe places and 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. That’s a war too. It’s a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can’t let these people in,” he adds.

He blames “radical left lunatics, that are brilliant people but dumb as hell when it came to common sense” for his qualms with migration to the US.

“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 says.

He claims Canada called him a couple of weeks ago to express interest in being part of his Golden Dome missile defense system.

“They want to be part of it, to which I said, ‘Why don’t you just join our country? You become 51, become the 51st state, and you get it for free,’” he says. “They’re having a hard time up there in Canada now, because, as you know, with tariffs, everyone’s coming into our country.”

Due to political correctness, “we had people who were totally unfit to be doing what you’re doing”, he tells military leaders. “Now, it’s all based on merit.”