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Marine Veteran Flat Out Calls Donald Trump ‘An Idiot’ Over Controversial Military Decision

Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) fiercely called out the president for not “understanding how the military works” after Donald Trump suggested that the military use some of the country’s “dangerous cities as training grounds.”

“Look, the president’s an idiot,” Gallego told CNN’s Boris Sanchez Tuesday before claiming that Trump “doesn’t actually understand how the military works.”

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“The first thing it’s going to be is that most U.S. citizens will stand against that in civil protests, and you’ll have many of us joining them in that if they try to do such a thing,” he continued.

Gallego, a Marine veteran, went on to argue to Sanchez that troops dispatched to these cities “will not be firing upon their own men and women, their own neighbors” due to the “oath that our members of the military take.”

“Only, again, an idiot like Donald Trump would believe that such a thing could happen,” he added.

Trump made his comments of using the military for domestic purposes while joining Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in Quantico, Virginia, Tuesday for a rare meeting with hundreds of top U.S. military officials at the Marine Corps base.

Sen. Ruben Gallego and President Donald Trump.

“I told [Hegseth], we should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military — National Guard, but our military, because we’re going into Chicago very soon,” Trump explained. “That’s a big city with an incompetent governor.”

Mentioning San Francisco, Chicago, New York and Los Angeles, Trump claimed that there is a “war from within,” adding, “Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security.”

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In recent weeks, Trump deployed the National Guard to Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles. The president said in a Truth Social post that he has also authorized the Pentagon to provide troops to “war ravaged” Portland, Oregon.

“I am directing Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, to provide all necessary Troops to protect War ravaged Portland, and any of our ICE Facilities under siege from attack by Antifa, and other domestic terrorists,” Trump wrote in the Sep. 27 post. “I am also authorizing Full Force, if necessary.”

Hegseth’s secretary of war title comes after Trump renamed the Department of Defense to the Department of War with an executive order. The order permits the change of titles, but it does not formally rename the department.

Meanwhile, similarly to Gallego, Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.), also a former Marine, slammed Trump for his plans to use certain U.S. cities as “training grounds.”

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Calling Trump and Hegseth “two small, insecure men,” Moulton said U.S. cities “should never be ‘training grounds’ for the military. There is no ‘enemy from within.’”

He added, “The reputational and operational damage being done to our military will take years to undo.”