Trump's Trials - Retired general talks about president's use of the military in U.S. cities

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

NPR speaks with retired Gen. Randy Manner, who was once a top official in the National Guard, about the president's use of the military in American cities.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

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I'm Lela Fawd. At a speech to hundreds of generals and admirals called to Virginia this week, President Trump laid out his vision for the military. Only in recent decades did politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia while America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within. He also said the National Guard and other military forces should use American cities as training grounds. As Trump deploys or threatens to deploy National Guard to have, half a dozen American cities. How do those words, he said, sound to military leaders? For that, we're joined by retired Major General Randy Manor. He spent 15 years in the Guard and served as

acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. General, good morning, and thank you for being on the program. Good morning. Thank you for having me. So when you heard the president say American City should be used as training grounds and the military should fight an enemy within, what were you thinking as someone who was a military leader? On the first count, in terms of using American in cities as training grounds. The president administration do not understand obviously what military training is all about. It's extremely dangerous. It involves heavy equipment, armored vehicles, night operations, weapons firing. And all of these things are done very closely monitored and done on military bases such that we can ensure maximum safety for our military

to imply or to state outright that training grounds should be used as city should be used as training grounds is absurd. It reflects a lack of understanding of what is involved in preparing our young men and women to be the best warriors on the planet. And what about the American public? I mean, using American cities as training grounds, I imagine, would be dangerous for people who live in the cities? Absolutely. It's something where it's just so absurd. It's just, if it wasn't for the fact that it was the president, it's actually comical. It's so important that, and also as you heard when the president said there is an enemy within, it's something where all of the listeners have to understand that the enemy within is not within the American military. It is not within the

American people. It has not been, it is not there. And so I leave it to all your listeners to decide, well, if it's not the American military and not the American people, where is the enemy within? Is it unprecedented for a president to tell the U.S. military they should fight an undefined enemy within. Absolutely correct. Again, it's something where he's trying to turn the American military against the American people. I absolutely want to reassure the American people that our military will never turn our back

on them. And you can absolutely have faith and hope in us that we will never abandon you. We will always have your back. We do not pledge allegiance to follow an individual. We pledge allegiance to defend the Constitution in the United States to do things that are right. And that's why the American people can count on us and that we will not be divided. The things that the president said this week, and combined with the National Guard being deployed in Washington, D.C.

and now in other U.S. cities, does that or will that change the relationship between the public and the U.S. military? It very likely can, because as the president, continues to drive wedges between different groups of people across our country, he's also going to be trying to drive a wedge between the American people and the military, because you can imagine we don't use the American military to watch Americans. That is not the objective. If there are issues relative to law enforcement, that's what you use appropriately trained police officers to be able to do. You do not use military with armed weapons and with armored vehicles. They are not trained in these types of skills, and we should never have American soldiers on American

streets. When you were listening to that speech, I mean, is the president, you mentioned the military swears an oath to the Constitution? Is the president asking the military to do things that are unconstitutional? I don't know. So far, I don't believe he's asking anything that sounds constitutional. He absolutely is pushing the envelope in terms of potential orders to deploy our National Guard into cities to do things which they are not by law permitted to do as well as things they are not trained to do. And also it's important to understand when the president said the gloves are off and that the military can do whatever they can to win wars. That's the words of potential war criminals. That's extremely dangerous rhetoric and we need to stand by the

rule of law. That was retired Major General, Randy Manor. General, thank you for joining us. Thank you. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show without sponsor messages. You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's turn.

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