Moving fast/rev V

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth speaks to senior military leaders at Marine Corps Base Quantico on Tuesday in Quantico, Va. In an unprecedented gathering, almost 800 generals, admirals and their senior enlisted leaders were ordered into one location from around the world on short notice. Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In looking at this image, one question to ask is. Why the brown shoes? The pose is bad enough but the shoes? Maybe it's to match the color of the podium's wood. Who knows. Let's not talk about the security and logistics issue or if the senior commanders can get back to their posts as a shutdown looms but that's ok. It's lethality and looking at US cities as potential training grounds to learn the art of war up close and personal, right?

President Trump defended the use of U.S. troops in American cities and told top U.S. commanders that the military would be used against the "enemy within."

"This is 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," Trump told those gathered for the highly unusual event at Quantico, Va. "It won't get out of control once you're involved at all."

Trump said he told Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that the U.S. "should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military," a reference to the Democratic-run cities that he has long said have high crime rates that make them uninhabitable.

Channeling the Nazi playbook comes to mind here. 

In closing ...

The presence of military leaders from across the globe at one central location presented challenges from both an operational and a national security perspective. The president's attendance added to those challenges.

The lack of detail leading up to Tuesday's remarks had led to speculation that Hegseth might use the occasion to fire generals. The defense secretary has long called for reducing the number of admirals and generals, who stand at more than 800, by about 20%.

Culling is fine as long as the people culled deserved to be culled. 

One never knows, do one? - Fats Waller