Retired major general calls Trump’s National Guard plans ‘unneeded and dangerous’
PBS News Hour - Segments
PBS NewsHour
4.1 • 1K Ratings
🗓️ 26 August 2025
⏱️ 7 minutes
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| 0:00.0 | Well, part of the administration's efforts to be able to send National Guard troops into cities |
| 0:05.0 | is a new order by President Trump to modify the Guard's organization and training and create rapid response units. |
| 0:11.8 | Our Nick Schiffren is here with that part of the story. Nick? |
| 0:14.4 | Jeff, yesterday President Trump signed an executive order that each state's National Guard units would be, quote, |
| 0:19.8 | resource, trained, organized, and |
| 0:21.7 | available to assist federal, state, and local law enforcement in quelling civil disturbances. |
| 0:27.0 | And the Secretary of Defense will create a, quote, standing National Guard quick reaction |
| 0:31.4 | force that shall be resource trained and available for rapid nationwide deployment. |
| 0:36.7 | For perspective on this, we turn to retired Army Major General Randy Manor, the former |
| 0:41.2 | acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau. |
| 0:44.5 | General Manor, thanks very much. |
| 0:45.6 | Welcome to the NewsHour. |
| 0:47.0 | What's your reaction to the President's order, both this quick reaction force as well |
| 0:51.8 | as the Guard's priorities? |
| 0:54.0 | I think this is unneeded and also very dangerous. It's setting a new precedent. |
| 0:58.0 | This is something where when I was the acting vice chief of the National Guard Bureau, |
| 1:02.0 | we absolutely already put into place the ability of having quick reaction forces in every state, |
| 1:08.0 | depending on the size, but also the state would depend on the size of these |
| 1:12.0 | quick reaction forces. They were at the time, of course, targeting the ability to respond |
| 1:17.2 | to emergencies in the state, such as floods, hurricanes, forest fires, earthquakes, and so |
| 1:23.2 | one, to be able to save lives. The difference here is that it's focused on quote unquote public order. |
| 1:30.8 | That's very disturbing. And also the idea of creating a unit whose primary mission is to deploy |
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