The autumn of Trump's discontent – Pentagon readying thousands of Guard ‘reaction forces’ as U.S. mission widens

Up to 23,500 service members are being readied and trained for civil unrest missions in U.S. cities, ‘The Washington Post’ reports.

The Pentagon has ordered thousands of specialized National Guard personnel to complete civil unrest mission training over the next several months, an indication that the Trump administration’s effort to send uniformed military forces into urban centers — once reserved for extraordinary emergencies — could become the norm.

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 mandate, along with the growing presence of federal and immigration enforcement officers, suggests further military deployments within the United States could grow in size and scope. The deployments, which President Donald Trump has described as a bid to quell violence and crime, have infuriated Democratic governors in multiple states, who have fought the president’s deployments through litigation.

A defense official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe military planning, said the Pentagon is “revising plans for the employment of [National Guard Reaction Forces] to guarantee their ability to assist federal, state and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances.”

Trump has mobilized thousands of National Guard members in D.C., Los Angeles and Memphis, with deployments to Chicago and Portland, Oregon, delayed by court decisions. He has claimed unfettered authority to deploy military personnel onto American soil, including active-duty troops, which by law are prohibited from performing law enforcement duties except in extreme cases or if the president invokes the Insurrection Act.

“We have cities that are troubled, we can’t have cities that are troubled,” Trump told assembled service members in Japan. “And we’re sending in our National Guard, and if we need more than the National Guard, we’ll send more than the National Guard, because we’re going to have safe cities.”

The mobilizations, critics have said, could corrode the military’s core mission by turning U.S. troops into foot soldiers fighting the president’s war of political grievance.

Pentagon documents obtained by The Post this summer outlined plans to develop a National Guard “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” that could rapidly deploy troops nationwide to counter civil unrest on short notice. The proposal called for troops from multiple states to be on standby at all times, split between military bases in Arizona and Alabama.

The White House announced the creation of the quick reaction force in August. The new documents said the force size would be a personnel drawn from troops under the Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear Assistance Support Element.

Those troops are specially trained to respond to various man-made and natural disasters and any accompanying civil unrest. The first wave of those troops would be ready to mobilize within eight hours, the documents said, with the full force ready in a day. The documents outline training with Tasers and pepper spray, and require each unit to have 100 sets of crowd-control gear on hand.

The federalized quick reaction force would complement the National Guard Reaction Force, whose troops are on standby for emergencies typically within their own state, according to a National Guard fact sheet.

The National Guard Reaction Force has existed nationwide for about two decades, the defense official said, declining to confirm the size of the force but saying it was already close to the 23,500 number noted in the documents.

While the courts have at times contested Trump’s domestic military deployments, Congress has abdicated its oversight responsibility, prompting larger concerns of institutional decay.

The US Army confirmed that National Guard troops are in Washington, DC.
Photo: Getty Images

Left-wing group plans November 5 protest to surround White House, Capitol and Supreme Court

The “No Kings” protesters have been making noise for months. Here’s what they’re planning for November 5th: a mass mobilization to physically surround the White House, the Capitol Building, and the Supreme Court. Their stated goal isn’t protest or petition — it’s overthrow, ‘I stand for freedom’ blog notes.

They want to “drive the Trump Fascist Regime from power,” and they’re explicitly saying they can’t wait for elections to do it. What would we call this if conservatives did it? Oh right — an insurrection.

From ‘Refuse Fascism website’: “Trump must go NOW… We cannot wait for election cycles. Humanity’s only hope is to drive the Trump Fascist Regime from power by surrounding the illegitimate fascist-stacked Supreme Court, the Capitol, and the White House.”

They’re calling for the immediate overthrow of all three branches of our government. Not through voting. Not through the courts. But through mob action — by physically surrounding federal buildings until the legitimately elected president is forced from office. They’re literally planning what Democrats spent years calling an insurrection when a few hundred protesters showed up on January 6, 2021.

Top Trump officials are moving onto military bases

Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff for policy; Marco Rubio, U.S. Secretary of state; Kristi Noem, U.S. secretary of Homeland security, and others have taken over homes that until recently housed senior officers, ‘The Atlantic’ reports.

Stephen Miller soon joined a growing list of senior Trump-administration political appointees — at least six by our count — living in Washington-area military housing, where they are shielded not just from potential violence but also from protest.

Kristi Noem, the Homeland Security secretary, moved out of her D.C. apartment building and into the home designated for the Coast Guard commandant on Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling, across the river from the capital, after the Daily Mail described where she lived.

Both Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth live on “Generals’ Row” at Fort McNair, an Army enclave along the Anacostia River, according to officials from the State and Defense Departments.

Although most Cabinet-level officials live in private houses, there is precedent for senior national-security officials, including the defense secretary, to rent homes on bases for security or convenience. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, whose family is in Washington only part-time, now shares a home on Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall, a picturesque site next to Arlington National Cemetery. His roommate is another senior political appointee to the Army.

Another senior White House official, whom The Atlantic is not naming because of security concerns related to a specific foreign threat, also vacated a private home for a military installation after Kirk’s murder. In that case, security officials urged the official to relocate to military housing, according to people briefed on the move, who like many others who spoke with us for this story were not authorized to do so publicly.

So many senior officials have requested housing that some are now encountering a familiar D.C. problem: inadequate supply. When Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard’s team inquired earlier in Donald Trump’s second term about her moving onto McNair, it didn’t work out for space reasons, a former official told us.

The threat assessment has also changed in recent years. Trump has survived two attempted assassinations; Iran has stepped up its efforts to kill federal officials; and political violence — such as the June shooting of two Democratic Minnesota lawmakers, the murder of Kirk in September, and the shooting at a Texas immigration facility two weeks later — is a real danger.

Base living — in the unofficial Trump Green Zone — has also become something of a double-edged status symbol among Trump officials. No one wants to deal with threats.

Justice Department investigating fraud allegations in Black Lives Matter movement

In recent weeks, federal law enforcement officials have issued subpoenas and served at least one search warrant as part of an investigation into the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation, Inc. and other Black-led organizations that helped spark a national reckoning on systemic racism, said the people, who were not authorized to discuss an ongoing criminal probe by name and spoke on condition of anonymity to The Associated Press.

The recent burst of investigative activity is also unfolding at a time when civil rights organizations have raised concerns about the potential for the Trump administration to target a variety of progressive and left-leaning groups that have been critical of him, including those affiliated with BLM, the transgender rights movement and anti-ICE protesters.

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