WASHINGTON >> President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned more than 800 of the country’s top brass to a military base in Virginia today to voice a familiar litany of culture war talking points and criticize a military that they complained had become distracted by political correctness.
The rare and highly anticipated call-up drew the country’s military commanders, who flew in from Asia, Europe and points between on short notice. The president delivered a rambling address that included familiar talking points and critiques, and also Trump’s revelation that he had told Hegseth to use U.S. cities where he has deployed troops as “training grounds” for the military.
It was unclear why, with a shutdown of the federal government looming, Trump and his defense secretary needed to gather the country’s senior military leaders from overseas deployments to tell them face to face that they were straight out of “central casting,” as Trump characterized the gathering.
“I’m thrilled to be here this morning to address the senior leadership of what is once again known around the world as the Department of War,” Trump said. (Though Trump has renamed the department, Congress has not yet approved the change.)
Trump praised his own tariff and border policies and insulted former President Joe Biden. Discussing his efforts to send troops to U.S. cities, he said: “We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.”
Hegseth spoke first, telling the assembled generals and admirals that he was tightening standards for fitness and grooming, cracking down even more rigorously against “woke garbage” and getting rid of attacks on “toxic” leadership that he said had gone too far.
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In his address, Hegseth railed against what he called “stupid rules of engagement” that he said limited soldiers and commanders in the field. He defended his firing of more than a dozen military leaders, many of them people of color and women.
And he said that, from now on, promotions would be based on merit, complaining that, in his view, they previously were not.
“We’ve already done a lot in this area, but more changes are coming soon,” he said.
It was standard fare for Hegseth, who will undoubtedly come under criticism for the expense of flying the commanders to the Washington area as a federal shutdown looms. Trump acknowledged the cost of the gathering as he boarded a helicopter to head to the Marine base at Quantico, where the gathering was being held.
“These are our generals, our admirals, our leaders, and it’s a good thing, a thing like this has never been done before, because they came from all over the world,” the president said. “And there’s a little bit of expense, not much, but there’s a little expense for that. We don’t like to waste it. We’d rather spend it on bullets and rockets.”
The generals and admirals assembled were mostly quiet during the remarks by Hegseth and Trump. It is tradition for the military to present a nonpartisan posture.
When Hegseth summoned the senior officers last week, he gave no reason for the meeting, which has no precedent in scope and scale in recent memory. The military leaders were told to expect a speech from the secretary heralding a so-called war-fighter culture he has championed since taking office, but they were given little other information.
The event took a new twist on Sunday when Trump said he would attend. That raised alarm among military specialists over his tendency as commander in chief to use U.S. troops as political props and visits to bases as occasions to bash political rivals, Democrats and the news media. During a speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, in June, Trump led troops to boo journalists and Biden.
Trump has sought to downplay the gathering, telling NBC News on Sunday, “It’s just a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily.”
In recent weeks, Trump has ordered National Guard soldiers to Los Angeles, Washington and Portland, Oregon, over the objections of local political leaders, to assist immigration efforts and combat crime. He also directed the military to attack boats in the Caribbean that he said were carrying drugs to the United States, but he offered no detailed legal justification.
The top four-star combatant commanders and Joint Chiefs of Staff typically meet at least twice a year in Washington, often holding a working dinner with the president. But the large number of lower-ranking generals and admirals at today’s meeting was highly unusual, military officials said.
In the days before the event, Democratic lawmakers and military specialists questioned the cost and disruption to daily operations caused by the meeting, as well as the security risks of concentrating so many top military commanders in one place. All, it appeared, for Hegseth to be able to lecture military leaders with decades of combat experience on an enhanced “warrior ethos” in a forum that was televised live.
“It appears to be one more demonstration of Secretary Hegseth mistakenly believing our military leadership needs to be directed to focus on fighting wars,” said Kori Schake, a former defense official in the George W. Bush administration who directs foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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