Senator Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, speaks during a hearing of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee on December 11, 2025, as Chairman Roger Wicker looks on. The hearing examined the Trump administration’s deployment of the National Guard across the United States. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON – U.S. lawmakers who oversee armed forces policy split along party lines Thursday as they examined National Guard deployments to cities across the country as part of what President Donald Trump described as a crime-fighting strategy.
Members of the Senate Armed Services Committee questioned senior Defense Department officials for nearly two and a half hours, including the Pentagon’s No. 2 lawyer and the head of U.S. Northern Command, which oversees National Guard troops in federal operations.
The Capitol Hill hearing came less than a month after a gunman shot and killed two West Virginia National Guard members in broad daylight outside a Washington, D.C., subway station, just blocks from the White House.
U.S. Army Spc. Sarah Beckstrom, 20, died her injuries the following day, Thanksgiving, and U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. Andrew Wolfe, 24, is recovering from grave injuries. A 29-year-old Afghan national who worked with American troops in Afghanistan charged with first degree murder.
The panel’s senators expressed bipartisan messages of support and gratitude for Beckstrom, Wolfe and their families, but Divisions were evident about why and for what reasons Trump has stationed the Guard in five US cities since June: Los Angeles; Washington, D.C.; Portland, Ore.; Chicago and Memphis, Tennessee.
Trump too threatened to send the Guard to other locations, including New York City, Baltimore, St. Louis and New Orleans.
In early June, Trump federalized the California National Guard for the first time and sent it to Los Angeles against the wishes of Mayor Karen Bass and Governor Gavin Newsom, both Democrats.
A California federal district judge governed The Trump administration must return troops to Newsom on Wednesday.
A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled on November 20 – six days before the attack on Beckstrom and Wolfe – that Trump’s deployment of the Guard in the District was illegal. A federal appeals court approved the service Members remain in the district while the appeal is pending.
There have been other cases, including challenges to Trump’s deployment of the Guard in Oregon and Illinois tied up in court.
Fight crime
Sen. Roger Wicker, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, opened the hearing by saying, “In recent years there has been a steady increase in violent crime, riots, drug trafficking and heinous gang activity,” citing the Justice Department.
That’s why, he said, Trump “ordered an immediate and coordinated response by deploying the National Guard to some of our country’s most dangerous cities.”
“It is not surprising that Democratic governors and left-wing pundits have condemned these deployments,” the Mississippi Republican said, dismissing any concerns as “contrived and misguided.”
While gathering exact crime statistics is challenging because many crimes go unreported, murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery have declined nationwide in 2024, according to the FBI Current crime statistics.
Data also shows According to the Pew Research Center, property and violent crime in the United States fell sharply between 1993 and 2022.
However, the analysis showed that attitudes toward crime are divided by party affiliation.
Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., argued Thursday that Guard deployments in cities across the U.S. are not uncommon.
He asked Charles Young III, deputy general counsel at the Defense Department, to explain how the process works.
Young pointed to a stack of books on the table and said the examples were “extensive.”
“Instead of using troops from the regular Army or the active component … the Founding Fathers wanted to use the National Guard because they were citizens and from the communities involved. And these books that I have here are just books about the role of federal forces in domestic disturbances,” he said.
“Is this a legal order?”
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Army National Guard veteran who said she pushed for the hearing, criticized Trump’s guard deployments as she delivered the Democrats’ opening remarks.
Duckworth said Beckstrom’s death and Wolfe’s injuries “should never have happened in the first place.”
“Military service carries risks, and our military members consciously and selflessly accept those risks. That’s why we should be damn sure the mission is the right one,” said Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial exploit of her right arm in Iraq when her Black Hawk helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade
Duckworth and other Democratic senators on the panel questioned the legality of Trump’s guard deployments, claiming the president was using the show of force to restrict public demonstrations and free speech.
Duckworth recalled Trump’s September 30th speech to military generals in Quantico, Virginia, when he said the government should exploit American cities as “training grounds for our military, the National Guard, but military because we’re going to Chicago very soon.”
In the same speech, Trump said that Democratic-run cities were “in bad shape” and “it’s a war from within.”
I remember Reports When Trump asked former Defense Secretary Mark Esper about the shooting of protesters in 2020, Duckworth asked: “Let’s say the president issued such an order. He said so. Is that a legal order?”
“Senator, appropriate orders would depend on the circumstances,” Young replied.
“We have a president who doesn’t believe the rule of law applies to him and who wants to use violence,” Duckworth responded.
Sen. Jack Reed, the committee’s ranking member, asked a similar line of questioning, asking Air Force Gen. Gregory Guillot, commander of U.S. Northern Command, “If the president declared an organization, a terrorist organization … and ordered you to attack it on U.S. soil, would you carry out that order?”
“Senator Reed, as with any order I receive, I would review the order, consult with legal authorities to ensure it is a lawful order, and if I had any questions, I would refer them to the chairman and the secretary, which they welcome at any time,” Guillot said.
“And if I had no concerns and was confident that the order was lawful, I would definitely carry out this order.”
Reed noted that Guillot was present at Trump’s speech at Quantico.
“The president has essentially indicated that you should be prepared to conduct military operations in the United States against this domestic enemy. Are you doing that?” he said.
“Sir, I was not asked to do anything that reflects what you just said,” Guillot replied.
Sen. Angus King, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said he did not believe Mark Ditlevson, deputy assistant secretary of defense for Homeland Security, who said Thursday that Trump was “clearly doing the right thing” and that the Guard was cooperating with local authorities.
King, from Maine, said the statement was “borderline humorous.”
“This didn’t happen in Illinois or California,” King said. “We’re talking about a broader issue here that I think is extremely dangerous, and the reason it’s particularly dangerous in the current moment is because we have a president who has a very low bar for what constitutes an emergency.”
Cities in sight
Trump deployed thousands of Guard troops to Los Angeles after local immigration raids sparked protests that city officials said local law enforcement was able to handle without facilitate.
In DC he based his deployment on a “Crime emergency” and the deployment of troops to the county’s streets was as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carried out weeks of raids, traffic stops and other actions as part of Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
district residents protested After the operation, opposition posters, stickers, flags and graffiti appeared all over the city.
Trump justified sending the Guard to Portland by falsely claiming that the city was “burn down.”
Officials in the District of Columbia and Tennessee have worked with the administration to bring the Guard to their cities, giving the troops the power to support local law enforcement.
Illinois, Oregon and California officials have not agreed to cooperate with the Guard, resulting in an order that limits members only to duties protecting federal property.
Trump had previously sent the National Guard to the nation’s capital in response to the protests in the summer of 2020 following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
