President Donald Trump on Tuesday turned what was meant as a celebration of the U.S. Army’s 250th anniversary, for soldiers at one of the nation’s most storied military bases, into a bellicose campaign-style rally as he attacked Democratic elected officials and denigrated the country’s second-largest city as a cesspool made rotten by “uncontrolled migration.”
Speaking before a crowd of uniformed soldiers at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, Trump defended his decision to send National Guard soldiers and active duty Marines to quell protests against his anti-immigrant deportation operations in Los Angeles as necessary to prevent attacks on federal law enforcement from a “violent mob.”