Trump Declares War on America
In a speech before an unprecedented gathering of hundreds of the nation’s top military commanders, President Trump declared war on major American cities.
We have many cities in great shape, too, by the way. I want you to know that. But it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats, what they’ve done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, 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.
He also singled out Portland, Oregon, which Trump said was so overrun with crime and chaos that it “looked like World War II.”
Trump criticized restrictions on the use of force by the National Guard and other military personnel on U.S. soil. Trump said he has removed those restrictions and, from now on, “they spit, we hit.” He praised members of the military for “pounding” gangs of “kids” in Washington, D.C.
Trump said he told Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth to “use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military.” He highlighted that he “signed an executive order to provide training for quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances.” Trump said deployments in U.S. cities are “going to be a big thing for the people in this room because it’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it gets out of control.”
The phrase “enemy from within” has an ugly history. It was famously used by Senator Joseph McCarthy in a 1950 speech: “When a great democracy is destroyed, it will not be from enemies from without, but rather because of enemies from within.” (McCarthy attributed the quote to “one of our outstanding historical figures,” but that claim appears to be apocryphal.) McCarthy used the concept of the “enemy within” to justify the trampling of civil rights and academic freedom. Earlier, the Ottoman Empire used the concept of the “enemy within“ to rationalize the Armenian genocide.
Not only is Trump’s rhetoric disturbing, but his claims about crime trends in American cities are objectively false. He is using this misinformation to justify deploying the military in a manner that is antithetical to American democracy.
The facts about crime in American cities
The reality is that crime is down in many major cities across America. In some cities, crime is at historic lows.
In Los Angeles, for example, murders were down 14% in 2024 compared to 2023. Victims shot also decreased by around 19% in 2024. Crime has continued to drop in Los Angeles this year. From January to July 2025, property crime decreased 15%, violent crime decreased 12%, and murders decreased 26% compared to the same period last year, according to the Real-Time Crime Index by AH Datalytics. According to data from the first half of 2025, the city is on pace to see the fewest homicides “in nearly 60 years,” the Los Angeles Times reported.
This trend continues across other cities that Trump claims are unsafe. In 2024, murders were down 32% in San Francisco compared to 2023, according to Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) data. In 2024, San Francisco’s homicide rate reached a low “not seen in the City since the early 1960s.” Property crime in San Francisco was also down 29% in 2024 and violent crime was down 13% compared to the year before. This year, crime in San Francisco has continued to decline, with murders down 20%, violent crime down 20%, and property crime down 29% in the first seven months of 2025 compared to the same period last year, according to the Real-Time Crime Index.
In 2024, murders decreased 9% in Portland compared to the year before, according to FBI data. Overall property crime also decreased by 6% in 2024, while violent crime did not see a significant change. Crime in Portland has continued to decrease in 2025. In the first seven months of the year, murders were down 51%, violent crime was down 16%, and property crime was down 4% compared to the same period in 2024, according to the Real-Time Crime Index
In Chicago, violent crime dropped 10% in 2024 compared to 2023, according to FBI data. Murder also dropped 7% in 2024, while overall property crime stayed relatively flat, with a 1% increase in 2024 compared to 2023. Crime has continued to plummet in Chicago this year. This summer, “Chicago recorded the fewest homicides in June, July, and August since 1965,” WBEZ reported. According to the Real-Time Crime Index, violent crime was down 20% in the first seven months of the year compared to the same period last year. Murders were also down 31% and property crime dropped 19%.
Trump also claimed that New York City is unsafe. But overall crime was down almost 3% last year, according to the New York City Police Department (NYPD). While there was not a significant change in violent crime or property crime from 2023 to 2024, murder was down 5% in 2024, according to data from the FBI. In 2025, crime has continued to drop. According to the Real-Time Crime Index, murders dropped 21% in New York City in the first seven months of 2025 compared to the same period in 2024, while overall violent crime decreased 3% and property crime dropped 4%. In the first eight months of the year, the city also “saw the fewest shooting incidents and shooting victims in recorded history,” according to the NYPD.
Why America has laws restricting the use of the military domestically
Trump’s call for war on American cities is both legally questionable and contrary to the long-held American principles. The primacy of civilian authorities has been central to American ideals since the Boston Massacre catalyzed the independence movement in 1770.
When the British colonized America, grievances about military force and control became a key motivator for independence. In the Declaration of Independence, the colonists wrote that under British rule, the military had become “independent of and superior to the civil power,” which impeded their rights. This principle was so important to the Founding Fathers that they included many provisions in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to check the domestic powers of the military.
Two primary laws govern the use of federal troops on U.S. soil: the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act.
The Posse Comitatus Act, which was passed in 1878, reads “Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Air Force, or the Space Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both.”
The Posse Comitatus Act prevents the use of the military on U.S. soil for law enforcement purposes absent explicit Congressional approval. Other laws allow the military to conduct other domestic operations, including providing emergency relief in the event of a public health crisis or natural disaster. But the military cannot ordinarily make arrests or conduct searches domestically.
The Insurrection Act is the main exception to the Posse Comitatus Act. It allows the president to use federal troops when a state requests assistance to quell an insurrection or when an insurrection impedes the federal government’s ability to enforce federal law. For example, the Insurrection Act was invoked to enforce desegregation in the South during the civil rights movement against the wishes of state governments, which sought to maintain segregation.
By waging “war” on American cities, Trump threatens to violate this essential American principle and turn federal troops against citizens. But his authority to do so rests on shaky legal ground.
While the Supreme Court has held for nearly 200 years that the president retains the authority to decide what constitutes a “rebellion” under the Insurrection Act, it has also ruled that the president’s decision is subject to review by the courts to determine if the decision was made in bad faith or based on an error.
Already, Trump’s decision-making has been called into question. In early September, a judge ruled that his administration’s use of federal troops in Los Angeles was illegal because “there was no rebellion, nor was civilian law enforcement unable to respond to the protests and enforce the law.”
Judd Legum is founder and author of Popular Information, an independent newsletter dedicated to accountability journalism. You can reach him at judd@popular.info.. Rebecca Crosby is a reporter at Popular Information. Reach her at rebecca@popular.info. Noel Sims is a reporter at Popular Information. Email him at noel@popular.info