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'Here it comes': Outrage as leaked Trump admin memo suggests 'the worst we've been waiting for'

New reporting based on a leaked briefing memo from a recent meeting between high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department sparked fresh warnings on Saturday about the Trump administration's internal plans to increase its domestic use of the U.S...
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'Here it comes': Outrage as leaked Trump admin memo suggests 'the worst we've been waiting for'​


"New reporting based on a leaked briefing memo from a recent meeting between high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department sparked fresh warnings on Saturday about the Trump administration's internal plans to increase its domestic use of the U.S. military.

According to Greg Sargent of The New Republic, which obtained the memo, the document "suggests that Trump's use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse."

The "terrifying" memo—which the outlet recreated and published online with certain redactions that concealed operational and personnel details—"provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve the Defense Department more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation."

Circulated internally among top Trump officials, TNR reports the memo was authored by Philip Hegseth, the younger brother of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The younger sibling, though lesser known by the public than his controversial brother, currently serves as a senior adviser to Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and acts as DHS liaison officer to the Pentagon.

The meeting between DoD and DHS officials and the memo centers on Philip Hegseth's push for closer collaboration between the two departments, especially with regard to operations on the ground, like those that happened earlier this year in Los Angeles when National Guard units and later U.S. Marines were deployed in the city to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local law enforcement put down local protests sparked by raids targeting immigrants and workers.

As Sargent noted in a social media post:


Strikingly, the memo says straightforwardly that what happened in Los Angeles is the sort of operation that may be necessary "for years to come." As one expert told me: "They see Los Angeles as a model to be replicated."
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"To Make America Safe Again, DHS and DoD will need to be in lockstep with each other, and I hope today sets the scene for where our partnership is headed," states the memo, which also compares transnational criminal gangs and drug cartels to Al Qaeda.
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Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, was among the experts TNR spoke with who called that comparison particularly worrying. "The conflation of a low-level threat like transnational criminal organizations with Al Qaeda, which was actually attempting to topple the United States government, is a clear attempt to use excessive force for a purpose normally handled by civil authorities," said Cohn.

Sociology professor Kim Lane Scheppele, a scholar who studies the rise of autocracy at Princeton University, was among those who raised alarm in response to the published reporting and the contents of the memo.

"Here it comes," wrote Kim Lane Scheppele. "The worst we've been waiting for."

According to TNR:

The memo outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies' activities in "defense of the homeland." It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several of his top advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine, and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot. Staff include Phil Hegseth and acting ICE commissioner Todd Lyons.
"Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo," the memo says.
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Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told TNR it was "disturbing to see DHS officials pressuring the U.S. military to turn its focus inward even further." Nunn added that the memo suggests that "military involvement in domestic civilian law enforcement" is set to become "more common" if the policy recommendations put forth by Phillip Hegseth take hold.

Following publication of his reporting, Sargent said he wanted to flag something specific for readers.

"It looks plausible that the Hegseth brothers are trying to push military leaders further on involving military in domestic law enforcement," he noted. "Two experts I spoke with read the memo that way. There may be a bigger story here to get."
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Aside from mass shootings and general gun violence, which isn't any worse from immigrants than full citizens, we are among the safest countries on the planet. Of course that is just the excuse to begin to use the military to start "deporting" full American citizens who disagree with the current administration. Remove their dissenters to concentrate control. Fascism 101.
 
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Trump Floats Deploying National Guard to New York, Chicago, and LA After DC Crack Down

President Donald Trump said he is considering deploying the U.S. military to other American cities, including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles.
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President Donald Trump said his administration is going to look at deploying the U.S. military to other American cities, including Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles, at a press conference where he announced that he was taking federal control of the police department in Washington, D.C., and deploying 800 National Guard troops there to crack down on crime.

Speaking from the White House briefing room in an extended and rambling press conference while flanked by members of his Cabinet, Trump declared the move “Liberation Day in D.C.” and said he was seeking to “rescue our nation’s capital from crime, bloodshed, bedlam, and squalor, and worse.”

Trump then revealed he is considering a similar move in other cities, including New York, which has in recent years seen violent crime reach lows not seeing in decades.

“Then I’m going to look at New York, in a little while,” Trump said. “Let’s do this. Let’s do this together.”

Trump went on to note his administration is also considering sending the military into Chicago, and mocked the Democratic governor of Illinois (and billionaire heir to the Hyatt hotels fortune) J.B. Pritzker.

“If we need to, we’re gonna do the same thing in Chicago, which is a disaster,” Trump said. “We have a mayor there who is totally incompetent. He’s an incompetent man. and we have an incompetent governor there. Pritzker’s an incompetent. His family threw him out of the business. And he ran for governor. And now I understand he wants to be president. But I noticed he lost a little weight so now he has a chance.”

After a tangent on the Los Angeles fires, Trump added: “Hopefully LA is watching.”

Crime remains high in Washington, D.C., compared to other major American cities, but it is nowhere near historic highs seen in the 1980s and 1990s. There was a surge in crime in the wake of the Covid pandemic, which has ebbed in recent years.
 
Just off the top, maybe taking control of D.C. was an idea hatched in last weekends “what do we do about the Epstein story” meeting at the White House. Here’s some great red meat for the base. And Trump and company realize parts of the base are really angry about the handling of the Epstein files. Militarization of D.C. might have been seen as a big enough distraction to really invigorate the base, as a great helping of red meat for a wavering base, in the wake of the Epstein story. Just a thought.
 
Cracking skulls will become more common at future demonstrations.


The Trump administration is evaluating plans that would establish a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” composed of hundreds of National Guard troops tasked with rapidly deploying into American cities facing protests or other unrest, according to internal Pentagon documents reviewed by The Washington Post.

The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively.

Cost projections outlined in the documents indicate that such a mission, if the proposal is adopted, could stretch into the hundreds of millions of dollars should military aircraft and aircrews also be required to be ready around-the-clock. Troop transport via commercial airlines would be less expensive, the documents say.

The proposal, which has not been previously reported, represents another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil. It relies on a section of U.S. Code that allows the commander in chief to circumvent limitations on the military’s use within the United States.

The documents, marked predecisional, are comprehensive and contain extensive discussion about the potential societal implications of establishing such a program. They were compiled by National Guard officials and bear time stamps as recent as late July and early August. Fiscal year 2027 is the earliest this program could be created and funded through the Pentagon’s traditional budgetary process, the documents say, leaving unclear whether the initiative could begin sooner through an alternative funding source.

It is also unclear whether the proposal has been shared yet with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Spokespeople for the Defense Department declined to comment. The National Guard Bureau did not return a request for comment.

While most National Guard commands have fast-response teams for use within their home states, the proposal under evaluation by the Trump administration would entail moving troops from one state to another.


The National Guard tested the concept ahead of the 2020 election, putting 600 troops on alert in Arizona and Alabama as the country braced for possible political violence. The test followed months of unrest in cities across the country, prompted by the police murder of George Floyd, that spurred National Guard deployments in numerous locations. Trump, then nearing the end of his first term, sought to employ active-duty combat troops while Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper and other Pentagon officials urged him to rely instead on the Guard, which is trained to address civil disturbances.

Trump has summoned the military for domestic purposes like few of his predecessors. He did so most recently on Monday, authorizing the mobilization of 800 D.C. National Guard troops to bolster enhanced law enforcement activity in Washington that he said is necessary to address violent crime. Data maintained by the D.C. police shows such incidents are in decline; the city’s mayor called the move “unsettling and unprecedented.”
 
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