WASHINGTON — The National Guard has launched training for 23,500 troops across all 50 states on de-escalation and crowd control tactics to counter radical left-wing rioters, leaked Pentagon documents reveal.
The internal memo, signed Oct. 8 by Maj. Gen. Ronald Burkett of the National Guard Bureau, orders Quick Reaction Force (QRF) units to be fully operational by Jan. 1, 2026, amid expectations that unrest in Democrat-led cities will intensify. The push follows President Trump's August executive order mandating Guard readiness to "quell civil disturbances" and support law enforcement.
A Pentagon spokesperson told RedState they wouldn’t speculate on "future operations,” but the training surge comes as Democrat-controlled cities grapple with a toxic mix of soft-on-crime policies and anti-mass-deportation protests that have spiraled into violence since June 2025.
Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Portland, and Atlanta have seen nightly clashes between protesters and ICE agents, with rioters hurling bricks, Molotov cocktails, and setting federal vehicles ablaze. In Los Angeles, sustained mayhem forced the deployment of U.S. Marines to protect federal buildings after local police were overwhelmed. Violent crime remains a crisis in blue strongholds despite national declines. FBI mid-2025 data shows an 8.2 percent drop in violent crime and a 17 percent reduction in murders nationwide, but Democrat-run metros dominate the deadliest cities list. Baltimore, Chicago, St. Louis, and Memphis lead the nation in per-capita homicides.
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Trump has already federalized National Guard units in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., and deployed them to Memphis under a joint federal-state task force, where crime has plummeted in response. Efforts to aid local police in Chicago and Portland with federal forces remain blocked by Democratic governors and court challenges.
The surge in National Guard readiness is the latest solution proposed to nearly a decade of escalating protest violence that began in Berkeley, California, in 2017, when clashes between far-left Antifa groups and pro-Trump supporters turned campus streets into battlegrounds. Rioters armed with bike locks, M-80 explosives, and metal poles overwhelmed UC Berkeley police, exposing the limits of traditional crowd control. Since then, Portland’s hundred-plus nights of rioting in 2020, Seattle’s CHOP zone occupation, and 2025’s anti-deportation arsons in Los Angeles have followed the same playbook. This has left local departments understaffed, under-equipped, and legally constrained from using force aggressive enough to match the threat.
The Pentagon said the department is “fully committed to implementing the president’s order to establish specialized civil disturbance units.”
A spokesperson for the National Guard informed Task & Purpose that the bureau is working with the Pentagon and all 54 states, territories, and the District of Columbia “in planning that will implement the direction” outlined by Trump in his August 25 executive order.
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