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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial
ARTICLE VIEW:
Trump signs executive order establishing ‘specialized’ National
Guard units to address crime in cities
By Zachary Cohen, Haley Britzky, Donald Judd, CNN
Updated:
3:09 PM EDT, Mon August 25, 2025
Source: CNN
President signed an executive order Monday tasking his secretary of
defense, Pete Hegseth, with establishing “specialized units” in the
National Guard that will be “specifically trained and equipped to
deal with public order issues” — the clearest sign yet he intends
to expand the US military’s role in domestic law enforcement
activities across the country.
Under the , Hegseth is charged with “ensuring that each State’s
Army National Guard and Air National Guard are resourced, trained,
organized, and available to assist Federal, State, and local law
enforcement in quelling civil disturbances and ensuring the public
safety and order whenever the circumstances necessitate, as appropriate
under law.” A primary mission of the National Guard is already to be
trained and available to assist law enforcement with public safety,
often at the request of their state’s governor.
It also orders Hegseth to “designate an appropriate number of each
State’s trained National Guard members to be reasonably available for
rapid mobilization for such purposes” and establish a standing
“quick reaction force that shall be “available for rapid nationwide
deployment.”
Questions remain, however, about how the order will work in practice.
The National Guard already has reaction forces, designed to rapidly
respond to incidents requiring law enforcement or security support in
each state, territory, and the District of Columbia. These forces
primarily perform their mission under the command and control of
governors, and Trump’s executive order on Monday does not specify
what authority the units outside of DC would report to if a state’s
governor does not wish to use them.
“It seems very performative,” Rachel VanLandingham, a former Air
Force judge advocate and current law professor at Southwestern Law
School, told CNN on Monday. “But again, the devil is in the details
of how they plan on using them,” she added.
The executive order heightens existing concerns that the Trump
administration is seeking to use the National Guard and federal law
enforcement agencies for political purposes — particularly as the
president appears to exclusively be considering deployments to cities
run by Democrats in blue states.
This move follows a directive by Hegseth that authorized members of the
National Guard deployed in Washington, DC, to begin carrying weapons.
National Guard members deployed to DC started carrying sidearms Sunday,
. A release from Joint Task Force – DC on Sunday said Hegseth
directed guard members to carry their assigned weapons. A US official
told CNN on Monday that some troops will carry M4 rifles, as that is
their primary weapon, whereas military police, for example, primarily
use a M17 handgun. A Joint Task Force spokesperson said the troops are
authorized to use their firearms for “personal protection” only,
meaning self defense— and “not for policing.”
Hegseth’s order marked a notable shift in guidance from the Pentagon,
which had previously indicated that National Guard members could be
armed if the circumstances warranted.
The defense secretary told reporters in the Oval Office on Monday that
the National Guard is “really proud to be a part of defending the
nation’s capital and ensuring it is safe and beautiful, and working
with law enforcement,” adding guard members deployed to the district
“love this mission.”
On Monday, Trump suggested he’d ask Congress to codify the action
expanding the National Guard’s remit, telling reporters in the Oval
Office, “I think Democrats will actually vote for this.”
And he left the door open to deploying military to other cities, such
as Chicago, telling reporters they are “ready to go anywhere,” with
“less than 24 hours’ notice.” However, he suggested he’d wait
until governors request National Guard troops before ordering
deployments to address crime.
“We may wait, we may or may not — we may just go in and do it,
which is probably what we should do,” Trump said. “The problem is,
it’s not nice when you go in and do it and somebody else is standing
there saying, as we give great results, say, ‘Well, we don’t want
the military.’ They need help badly — Chicago desperately needs
help. Just look at the crime statistics.”
Different rules for DC deployment
Trump could send National Guard troops into a state against the
governor’s wishes, reminiscent of what this summer, when troops were
federalized. But that critical distinction of who the troops report to
impacts what guard members can or cannot do while they are mobilized.
Federalized troops, like those who mobilized in LA, cannot perform law
enforcement activities, as it would be a violation of the Posse
Comitatus Act. Troops on Title 32 orders, like those mobilized inside
DC, are not subject to Posse Comitatus and therefore able to assist in
law enforcement.
The DC National Guard is unique in that the president has the authority
to activate them under Title 32, though that authority is typically
delegated to the secretary of the Army. Otherwise, National Guard
troops elsewhere in the country are under the control of their
governors while on Title 32.
“DC sets a bad example,” VanLandingham said. “It sets an example
of normalizing this when nothing is normal about it, and DC is not
representative of other states. … It would just be a whole new world
for them to try a Washington, DC-type maneuver in Chicago or anywhere
else that’s not Washington, DC, because Washington, DC, is so legally
different than any other area.”
“He wants to do DC in Chicago, but he doesn’t have the statutory
authorities in DC unless he finally invokes the Insurrection Act,”
she added. The Trump administration left the door open to invoking the
Insurrection Act earlier this year in regard to military activity at
the southern border, though the Pentagon and Department of Homeland
Security taking the dramatic step, which would allow Trump to use
active-duty military forces within the US to perform law enforcement.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat from Illinois, forcefully objected
Sunday to the possibility of Trump deploying the National Guard to
Chicago — something the president has said he is strongly
considering.
“It comes as no surprise Donald Trump is once again attacking
Chicago, but that doesn’t change that Trump’s continuing pattern of
politicizing and misusing our nation’s military for his own partisan
gain and to crush dissent is deeply disturbing, is un-American and has
no place in any of our cities,” Duckworth, a combat veteran and
member of the Senate Armed Services, said in a statement ahead of
Monday’s executive order signing.
Logistically, Monday’s executive order also leaves questions
unanswered as to how the “specialized units” would train or whether
there would be coordination between those units across the states.
“Are you saying each state is going to have its own quick reaction
force that can handle everything? Are you looking at an amalgamation of
units that come together under a Pentagon official, commander? If so,
then you need to have a schoolhouse where they’re getting together
and training on this, and what are the regulations on it? … This is
classically how military missions fail, when you don’t have clear
guidance and you haven’t been training together,” VanLandingham
said.
National Guard troops on the DC mission are expected this week to begin
assisting more with the “beautification” piece of the mission. A US
official told CNN on Monday that the guard is working through what
equipment will be needed and what sites they’ll assist with, but
tasks are expected to include things like painting over graffiti,
picking up trash, and removing driftwood from the Tidal Basin by the
Martin Luther King Jr. memorial.
The executive order signed in March titled, “Making the District of
Columbia Safe and Beautiful,” directed a “coordinated
beautification plan” for facilities, monuments and parks in DC, the
removal of graffiti, and to “ensure the cleanliness of public
spaces.”
For weeks, Trump has ramped up efforts to crack down on crime in
Washington, DC, which has also included a federal takeover of the
city’s police department and increased federal law enforcement
presence. The president has repeatedly complained about rising crime in
DC, but overall crime numbers than in 2024.
To assist the DC National Guard, troops from the National Guards in
West Virginia, South Carolina, Mississippi, Ohio, Louisiana and
Tennessee were called upon. Troops from the GOP-led states in the
nation’s capital last week. As of Sunday morning, there were 2,274
National Guardsmen on the mission, more than 1,300 of them from
supporting states.
In the week beginning August 12, the first full day the Trump
administration had control of the Metropolitan Police Department, the
city saw a — and a far larger surge in arrests of immigrants, a CNN
analysis of government data found.
CNN’s Brian Todd contributed reporting.
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