WASHINGTON — President Trump boasted Tuesday about his hard line with foreign countries, criminals and rioters while demanding the Nobel Peace Prize during a lengthy speech to military leaders.
Trump’s wide-ranging 72-minute speech outlined his philosphy of peace-through-strength in foreign affairs and a new focus on what he called “the enemy from within” — weeks after he changed the Department of Defense’s name to the Department of War.
“In the coming months, we’ll be making even more historic announcements to fully embrace the identity of the Department of War. I love the name. I think it’s so great. I think it stops wars,” Trump told hundreds of generals and admirals at Marine Corps Base Quantico in Virginia.
“The Department of War is going to stop wars. If we are as ruthless and relentless as our enemies, the United States armed forces will be totally unmatched in the future. We have a group of enemies that are very ruthless and very smart, but they can’t match us.”
The highly anticipated speech featured the commander in chief boasting about airstrikes earlier this month against four alleged Venezuelan drug smuggling boats and his August deployment of a nuclear submarine as a warning to Russia after “stupid” former President Dmitry Medvedev made nuclear threats.
“If you try to poison our people, we will blow you out of existence,” Trump warned after sinking the Venezuelan ships that allegedly were smuggling cocaine and fentanyl. “That’s the only language they really understand. That’s why you don’t see any more boats on the ocean.”
Of the nuclear-armed submarine deployment off the Russian coast, Trump said cheekily: “There are two N words and you can’t use either of them.”
The president then moved on to discuss the “enemy from within” — after deploying National Guard soldiers to quell rioting in Los Angeles and violent crime in Washington.
“Last month, I signed an executive order to provide training for a quick reaction force that can help quell civil disturbances. And 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 before it gets out of control,” Trump said.
“It won’t get out of control once you get involved at all. They all joke. They say, ‘Oh, this is not good.’ You saw it in Washington. We had gangs of Tren de Aragua — 10, 12, 15, kids — and these military guys walk up to and they treat them with disrespect, and they just got pounded. They just got pounded. The gang, just pounded, and thrown into paddy wagons and taken back to their country.”
Trump argued that many of his predecessors had used the military to keep the peace domestically.
“Our history is filled with military heroes who took on all enemies, foreign and domestic. You know that phrase very well — that’s what the oath says, ‘foreign and domestic.’ Well, we also have domestic,” Trump said.
“George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Grover Cleveland, George Bush and others all use the armed forces to keep domestic order and peace. … Now they like to say, ‘Oh, you’re not allowed to use the military.’ And you know what the people say, the people in those cities where they’re being raped and shot, beat up? You know, they say, ‘We love the military.’”
Trump used the term “insurrectionist” in apparent reference to rioters, saying, “a lot of these insurrectionists are paid by whether it’s [George] Soros or other people, but they’re paid by the radical left.”
The tough-talking remarks also featured a demand from Trump that the six-person committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize — due to be announced Oct. 10 — take into account his actions to help resolve seven international conflicts.
Trump on Monday announced a 20-point peace plan to resolve the war in the Gaza Strip, the terms of which have been accepted by Israel and endorsed by eight prominent Muslim-majority nations — including Egypt, Turkey and Saudi Arabia — but not agreed to by Hamas.
“If this [Gaza] works out, we’ll have eight — eight in eight months. That’s pretty good. Nobody’s ever done that. Will you get the Nobel Prize? Absolutely not. They’ll give it to some guy that didn’t do a damn thing. They’ll give it to a guy that wrote a book about the mind of Donald Trump,” he predicted.
“We’ll see what happens, but it would be a big insult to our country. I will tell you that. I don’t want it. I want the country to get it.”
Trump argued that his tough talk and pursuit of peace were consistent.
“Since my inauguration, we’re witnessing the triumphant return of peace through strength,” he said. “We have great peace through strength. America is respected again as a country. We were not respected with [former President Joe] Biden. They looked at him falling down stairs every day.”
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