President Donald Trump on Tuesday told about 800 of the country’s top military officials that he’s using “dangerous cities as training grounds” for the military and will be going into Chicago “very soon.”
Trump’s wide-ranging and unprecedented address to military leaders in Quantico, Virginia comes a day after Gov. JB Pritzker said he had received word that the Department of Homeland Security wants to send in 100 “military troops” to Illinois to help protect ICE facilities and personnel.
“I told [Defense Secretary] Pete [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon,” Trump said in a wide-ranging address to military leaders at Quantico. “That’s a big city with an incompetent governor. Stupid governor. Stupid.”
Trump also criticized crime in Chicago, despite violent crime and murder rates having dropped in the city, saying, “They need the military desperately.”
Mobilization of the National Guard has begun in Oregon, which Trump called “a war zone.”
Trump also addressed whether the military could retaliate against protesters, vowing, “I say they spit, we hit.”
He also told military leaders that he signed an executive order to establish a National Guard quick reaction force last month “because it’s the enemy from within.”
“We have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump said.
Pritzker on Monday said the Illinois National Guard obtained a memo that DHS sent to the Defense Department which sought to request 100 military personnel for Illinois. It’s unclear what type of troops would be deployed or when. But Pritzker likened the memo to one sent by the Defense Department to Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek on Sunday, which called 200 members of the Oregon National Guard into federal service for a 60-day deployment, according to Oregon Public Broadcasting.
State officials had no update on a pending deployment of troops, but Pritzker planned to address the media at two unrelated events later on Tuesday.
Trump has threatened to send in the National Guard to Chicago since last month. Pritzker, Johnson and a broad coalition of political and business leaders have insisted Trump back off, with the governor accusing Trump of attempting to normalize military presence in cities to stifle voter turnout in the 2026 midterm elections. And the president has been a consistent critic of Pritzker, who is a likely 2028 presidential contender.
