Following massive anti-Trump demonstrations at this month’s No Kings protests and Donald Trump’s recent threats to send “more than the National Guard” and to use “dangerous cities as training grounds for our military National Guard,” newly unearthed Pentagon documents show the administration is training more than 20,000 National Guard troops as a “quick reaction force” with “civil unrest training,” ready to deploy by April 1.
The documents — which have been reviewed by The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal and The Guardian, but have not been independently reviewed by MSNBC — detail plans for a significant expansion of Trump’s plan to send National Guard troops into American streets.
According to the Post:
The Defense Department’s newly established ‘quick reaction force’ within the National Guard must be trained, equipped with riot-control gear and ready for deployment by Jan. 1, according to internal documents reviewed by The Washington Post. The 200 troops will be drawn from National Guard personnel whose primary focus is responding to disasters like nuclear accidents and terrorist attacks, the documents said.
The Post goes on to detail plans to expand that number by April:
An existing separate but similar structure, the National Guard Reaction Force, is expected to complete civil unrest training and be fully operational by April 1. The total size of the force will be 23,500 troops across all 50 states and three territories, excluding the District of Columbia, the documents say. Most states will supply 500 personnel for the reaction force, with the rest falling between 250 and 450. Those forces are typically used for emergencies like disaster relief, not on call troops for civil unrest.
Aside from the fact there is no evidence of any actual “insurrection” in a single American city, Trump administration officials in recent weeks have baselessly referred to liberals and protesters as “terrorists.” During his speech to military leaders in September, Trump said these groups were being created to target the “enemy within,” referring to other Americans with a phrase with fascist echoes.
Trump to military leaders: "Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. This is gonna be a big thing for the people in this room, because it's the enemy from within and we have to handle it before… pic.twitter.com/9uDwszxWuN The Trump administration continues to weaponize federal agencies and the U.S. military to target his opposition. He’s tapped far-right election deniers for top positions in his administration, and for next week’s elections, his Justice Department has said it will deploy election monitors to polling sites in New Jersey and California, where the state is set to vote on whether to authorize a new, Democratic-friendly congressional redistricting. Now the Pentagon (led by scandal-plagued former Fox News host Pete Hegseth) seems intent on repurposing the National Guard for what is shaping up to be a nationwide show of force against the president’s critics. Numerous polls throughout the year have shown broad majorities of Americans oppose the deployment of National Guard into American cities. Evidence suggests that even some members of the National Guard aren’t on board with Trump’s plans. The New York Times reported earlier this year on troops deployed to California who “spoke of low morale and deep concern that the deployment may hurt recruitment.” Two Illinois National Guard members recently told CBS News they would refuse to obey orders to turn on fellow residents as part of the Trump crackdown in Chicago, accusing the administration of using public safety claims as a pretext to weaponize the military against civilians.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.
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