The president of the United States used a speech on Fort Bragg to harshly attack California’s officials, accusing them of funding agitators. Trump also promised to “free” the city of Los Angeles and suggested to the military to refuse a salary increase to give this money to Governor Gavin “Escumalha” Newsom, “for him to waste him in Los Angeles”
Donald Trump returned to one of his favorite arenas this week-a makeshift stage in front of US troops-to, in a speech that broke with the traditional duty of political neutrality of the presidents in a military environment, to launch a clenched attack on California, to its governor and, in particular, to the city of Los Angeles.
The intervention took place at the military base of Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and quickly exchanged the institutional tone for a party diatribe. “Los Angeles has gone from being one of the cleaner, safe and most beautiful cities on the planet to a bunch of trash, with whole neighborhoods under the control of transnational gangs and criminal networks,” Trump said before the soldiers, before promising, “Very simply, let’s free Los Angeles and make it free, clean and safe.”
The phrase echoed among the military, but the speech – broadcast live – would rise even more. In a moment that did not escape political symbolism, the US President offered a salary increase to the troops present, although he did so with sarcasm and a provocation directed at the Governor of California, Gavin Newsom, whom Trump again called his favorite epithet: “Gavin Newscum” (insulting pun with the word “scum” “Scum”).
“Now they don’t have to accept this increase if they don’t want to,” he said in a trading tone. “They can be great patriots and say, ‘I don’t want the increase, I don’t accept it, let him go back to our country. Let’s give him to Gavin Newscum, for him to waste him in Los Angeles.”
The moment was already generating controversy, but there would be more. Before abandoning the pulpit to the sound of Village People’s classic “YMCA” – that Trump has adopted as a campaign sound band since 2020 – the president advanced with a conspiracy theory without any proof or foundation, but presented as if it were: accused Newsom and the mayor of Los Angeles, Karen Bass, to finance protesters and agents to attack federal agents.
“In Los Angeles, the governor of California, the mayor… are incompetent. They have paid jams, agitators and insurrectionists. They are involved in a deliberate attempt to nullify federal law and facilitate the occupation of the city by criminal invaders,” he said, without any indication that supports the allegations.
The statements arise at a time when Trump tries to consolidate his speech of “law and order”, which comes from the race to the presidential 2024, insisting on a rhetoric of confrontation with the states governed by Democrats and making immigration and urban crime flagers of its presidency. But the political use of the Armed Forces, and the way it instigates resentment between military and civil institutions, is already generating discomfort between former US defense.
