From Los Angeles to Washington, Trump leans in as commander in chief

Politico

3 days ago

President Donald Trump loves displays of military force. He's parading two very different kinds this week.
On one coast, military forces are arriving by the thousands to defend federal buildings and agents, facing off with civilians protesting the president's immigration agenda. On the other, they're readying a celebration of American military might in a parade held on the Army's — and Trump's — birthday.
The scenes in Los Angeles and Washington underscore how Trump is leveraging his role as commander-in-chief in a much clearer and more urgent way than he did during his first term — embodying the image of a strong military commander that he has long admired in other foreign leaders, allies and adversaries alike.
Trump has long seen the military and his command of it as a sign of his own strength and even expressed a sense of ownership over it. During the first term he referred to John Kelly and James Mattis, the retired four-star Marine generals who served in his Cabinet, as 'my generals.' Trump allies say time has reinforced that sense and removed any inhibitions, allowing him to expand his role as commander-in-chief even further, whether that's showing off the military in a parade or using it to quell protests.
'When you have four years out of office, you really have an opportunity to reflect on how you would do the job differently — and I think you see that manifesting itself in countless ways,' said Sean Spicer, who was press secretary during Trump's first term. 'He is much more confident in command.'
And, Spicer added: 'He does love being commander in chief.'
In recent days, Trump has mobilized thousands of California's National Guardsmen and deployed hundreds of Marines — in defiance of Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom — to stamp out protests in Los Angeles over his deportation agenda. It comes as he prepares to preside over a very different show of force on Saturday with the kind of Americana-drenched military parade he has long dreamed of in celebration of the Army's 250th birthday.
More than 100 military vehicles and thousands of soldiers are set to participate, with M1A2 Abrams tanks rolling down Constitution Avenue in front of the White House and Black Hawk, Apache and Chinook helicopters and World War II- and Vietnam-era planes circling overhead.
The price tag, which could range anywhere from $25 million to $50 million, will dwarf any other military parade in recent memory, according to the Army.
As of Tuesday afternoon, at least a dozen military vehicles, including humvees, were staged in a Pentagon parking lot. In addition, several dozen tanks and other military vehicles were sitting in West Potomac Park.
Trump has wanted to hold a military parade in Washington since he accompanied French President Emmanuel Macron to a 2017 Bastille Day parade, where troops marched down the Champs-Élysées while fighter jets flew overhead, leaving trails of red, white, and blue smoke behind them. Trump later called it 'one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' but aides advised him against throwing a similar affair.
Trump has also heaped praise on military displays from adversaries. During a 2017 state visit to China, Trump called a military parade 'magnificent,' and after North Korea toned down its military parade in 2018 to reportedly exclude nuclear weapons, he praised the country for making a 'big and very positive statement.'
Marc Short, who served as Trump's legislative affairs director and Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff during the president's first term, said the timing of the Washington parade and the Los Angeles protests was coincidental, but acknowledged the two events offer a sharp contrast.
'He always wanted a military parade the first administration,' he said. 'There's no doubt there's some things that the second go-around he feels like he learned from the first administration the way he wants to do a second time.'
One former Trump official, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak freely, called both the administration's response to the Los Angeles protests and the military parade a 'holistic approach to national security using all elements of state power as needed.'
'This administration understands that civil unrest and social cohesion is integral to our overall security,' the official said. 'You can't be a secure and prosperous country when rioters waving foreign flags are rampaging in a major country.'
White House spokesperson Anny Kelly said in a statement that 'America is respected again' with Trump as commander in chief.
'Thanks to this President's leadership, our homeland is secure, military recruitment is up, our warfighters are prioritized, and the U.S. Army is getting the grand celebration it deserves for 250 years of honor, courage, and sacrifice,' Kelly said.
Trump's response to the unrest in Los Angeles offered an opportunity to accomplish something he didn't in his first term. His decision to mobilize the first tranche of those troops, just 24 hours after the protests began, without the support of Newsom offered a stark contrast to his response to the protests after the killing of George Floyd in 2020, when he instead waited for governors to deploy their guardsmen.
Steve Cortes, a longtime Trump adviser and conservative commentator, said that Trump's response then 'was just not forceful enough, early enough.'
'Trump seems super intent on a very different path now, with a serious show of righteous force to protect American lives and property,' Cortes said.
The displays of military force also speak to another theme of his second administration — his desire to bring American institutions to heel, from elite universities and cultural centers to the federal bureaucracy and the military. In a recent address to West Point graduates, the president touted his elimination of the military's diversity, equity and inclusion policies — and that he had 'rebuilt the military.'
'Second term, I think he's really become what I call a unilateralist, which is he wants to do things that he can do on his own — that people can't stop him from doing,' said Tevi Troy, a former White House official under President George W. Bush turned presidential historian.
But, Troy noted, that for as much as Trump likes displays of military power and is willing to deploy military resources at home to curb civil unrest, secure the border or assist with deportations, he's been much more reluctant to send soldiers into large-scale combat overseas.
Trump has in some ways been more demanding on the military in the first five months of his administration than in his first term, deploying 10,000 active duty and Guard troops to the southern border, using dozens of military transport aircraft to fly migrants around the world, and the deployment of 4,700 troops to Los Angeles.
Military parades are a regular occurrence for many branches of the armed forces. The Marines host a small-scale parade at their Washington Barracks near Capitol Hill almost every week of the summer, and the Navy hosts 'Fleet Week' where ships park in city docks.
But those do not come at the behest of the president. The scale and optics of Saturday's parade and Trump's expansive deployments of U.S. troops on their own soil have split the Pentagon's traditionally apolitical bureaucracy along party lines, one defense official said. Pro-Trump officials in the Pentagon have defended the event as an Army birthday celebration, while anti-Trump officials have likened it to a North Korean military demonstration.
'The U.S. military has always been his flex,' one former defense official said of the recent events. 'He loves threatening the world with its power. And now he threatens his domestic enemies — which are anyone he casts as liberal or democrat, and anyone who speaks against him.'