Leading Pentagon officials have expressed concerns about President Donald Trump's threat to deploy the U.S. military in response to protests across the country over the killing of George Floyd.
"There is an intense desire for local law enforcement to be in charge," one unidentified defense official told CNN on Tuesday, the day after Trump vowed to deploy the military to states and cities that continue to have protests.
"We're going to clamp down very, very strong," Trump said Monday, in a call with governors. "The word is 'dominate.' If you don't dominate your city and your state, they're gonna walk away with you. And we're doing it in Washington. In DC, we're going to do something that people haven't seen before.
"But we're going to have total domination."
Defense Secretary Mark Esper said on the same call that states must "dominate the battle space" until the unrest "dissipates and we can get back to the right normal," according to ABC News.
"I believe that we in America should not get used to or accept uniformed service members of any variety having to be put in a position where they are having to secure people inside the United States of America," Army Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden, the Adjutant General of the Georgia National Guard, said the day before, adding, "while we are glad to do it and honored to do it, this is a sign of the times that we need to do better as a country."
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