Word has gone out from the White House that President Trump plans to attend the hastily called meeting of hundreds of the nation's top generals and admirals on Tuesday, a gathering ordered last week by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who said he'll address the brass. Trump's decision has scrambled the security arrangements. "We have confirmation from the White House that POTUS is now attending the speech on Tuesday," says a planning document sent Saturday, reports the Washington Post, which has seen it. A notice distributed at the Pentagon said Trump's presence at the Virginia base will "significantly change the security posture" of the event.
For one, the president's attendance at Quantico means the Secret Service is now responsible for security, with little notice. Two Democratic members of the Senate Armed Services Committee criticized the meeting on Saturday as an expensive political stunt—estimates put the tab in the millions—that raises security risks, per the New York Times. "For an administration obsessed with rooting out waste, this abrupt, time and resource-intensive meeting of our military's top commanders is absurd," said a statement by Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Mazie Hirono.
There's been little explanation from the Trump administration about why the generals and admirals have been summoned from all over the world, and there was none provided for why Trump decided even later to take the stage from Hegseth. Such a meeting usually would be planned months in advance, per USA Today. Current and past military officials have expressed concerns about the purpose of the meeting, including that it could be overtly political, which Trump's attendance suggests. In a speech at Fort Bragg in June, Trump called protesters "animals," repeated his false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and endorsed conspiracy theories.
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