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TRUMP DECLARES WAR ON AMERICA  
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Judd Legum, Rebecca Crosby, and Noel Sims
October 1, 2025
Popular Information
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_ "It’s the enemy from within and we have to handle it before it
gets out of control." _

President Donald Trump speaks during a meeting of senior military
leaders on Tuesday., Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

 

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
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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
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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
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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 [[link removed]] 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
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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
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Francisco’s homicide rate reached a low “not seen in the City
since the early 1960s
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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 [[link removed]].

In 2024, murders decreased 9% in Portland compared to the year before,
according to FBI data
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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 [[link removed]]

In Chicago, violent crime dropped 10% in 2024 compared to 2023,
according to FBI data
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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
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According to the Real-Time Crime Index
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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
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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 [[link removed]] from
the FBI. In 2025, crime has continued to drop. According to
the Real-Time Crime Index [[link removed]], 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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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conduct searches domestically.

The Insurrection Act
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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
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“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 [email protected]..  Rebecca Crosby is a reporter at
Popular Information. Reach her at [email protected].  Noel Sims
is a reporter at Popular Information. Email him at [email protected]_

* Trump
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* war on crime
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* illegal action
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* U.S. military policy
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