Did Donald Trump say he would use the military against US citizens prior to sending Marines to LA?

1. The statements: public threats to use U.S. forces at home

Multiple outlets documented Trump making explicit or easily interpretable threats to employ military force against people inside the United States: news coverage in October 2024 recorded comments proposing deployment of troops against the “radical left” and “the enemy from within,” and analysts flagged those remarks as a proposal to use military personnel on American citizens, a notion many veterans and lawmakers condemned as dangerous and “un-American” ^{[1] [2] [3]}.

2. Legal instruments he referenced and experts’ warnings

Journalists and legal analysts reported that Trump’s proposals would require invoking extraordinary authorities such as the Insurrection Act — a statute allowing domestic deployment of military forces under certain conditions — and commentators, including former Pentagon officials, urged the public to take his statements seriously because they would upend long-standing legal norms limiting military domestic law enforcement ^{[2] [1]}.

3. Republican defenses and efforts to reframe the remarks

After the October 2024 comments drew fire, some Republican officials attempted to recast or narrow Trump’s language — for example arguing he meant to address illegal migrants or border security rather than deploying troops against political opponents — while media outlets documented disputes over the original wording and intent ^[3]. That debate demonstrates a clear partisan effort to minimize how those remarks read to critics and military observers.

4. Deployment to Los Angeles: what happened and its precedents

In June 2025 President Trump ordered about 2,000 California National Guard personnel to Los Angeles over Governor Gavin Newsom’s objections, an uncommon step in U.S. practice, and the mobilization included activation of roughly 700 Marines from Camp Pendleton to the L.A. area, even as questions persisted about rules of engagement and training for domestic operations ^{[5] [4]}. Coverage framed the move as historically rare because it ignored the governor’s opposition and invoked active-duty forces alongside state Guard units ^{[5] [4]}.

5. Timeline and causation: words before boots

The documented timeline is clear in the available reporting: public suggestions and threats to use the military domestically date back to at least October 2024 and were repeatedly raised in media and watchdog accounts thereafter ^{[1] [2] [3]}, while the high-profile mobilization of Guard and Marines to Los Angeles occurred in June 2025 ^{[5] [4]}. Thus the rhetoric about using military force on domestic targets predates the LA deployments in both timing and public record.

6. Military, legal, and civic alarm at both rhetoric and action

Military leaders, retired commanders, civil liberties groups and state officials expressed alarm at both the rhetoric and the deployment: critics warned that threatening or ordering military forces to act against U.S. citizens would strain the Posse Comitatus norms and could provoke dangerous escalation on the streets, and a former top California Guard commander called bringing Marines and Guard in over a governor’s objection “heavy‑handed” ^{[4] [6] [5]}. At the same time, some allies argued the statements were mischaracterized or focused on immigration and public order — an alternative framing contested by numerous fact-based accounts ^[3].

7. What this reporting cannot establish

The sources provided document the public statements, the legal mechanisms invoked in discussion, the eventual LA mobilization, and contemporaneous reactions ^{[1] [2] [3] [5] [4]}, but they do not supply a comprehensive record of private directives, internal decision memos, or every specific public utterance by the president that might nuance intent; those gaps limit any definitive claim about motive beyond what Trump said in public and what officials then ordered ^{[1] [4]}.