Welcome to the beat. I'm Ari Melbler today. The president made what are widely called unusual,

perhaps unprecedented remarks in the modern era. And I'm going to show you exactly what he said

and why military veterans and many other experts on a nonpartisan basis say, this is one of those

inflection points you need to confront.

It is unusual to gather this many members of the military in peacetime. The president made

this public address so everyone can see and hear what he is saying to the military.

And he explicitly said this military under this Trump administration must better focus on attacking,

quote, the enemy within. And as for the controversial and sometimes legally overruled use of

the just the National Guard in America, the president rhetorically pushing past that,

explaining that he views the military, which we'll show you was quite careful

to be quiet during what were widely seen as partisan remarks, he will use the military on

American cities for what he calls a training ground for a new type of war. Now, some of this may be

rhetoric alone. There is always a difference when you observe and cover the

government between what politicians say and what they do. If we were covering this speech for you

tonight and there had not been the deployment of National Guard and other federal forces in the

nation's capital in California and skirmishes over it in many other places, it would look different.

But our job is to report to you

what the president is saying and what he is doing, what he is trying to get away with, sometimes under

very pitched court battles. The context here, hundreds of generals and admirals were summoned

at a cost of many millions of dollars from their posts around the world to hear the president.

Now, again, in all fairness, although that itself is unusual, the president can do that.

He is commander-in-chief, and he may have reasons, policy or otherwise, that he wants to summon them.

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