‘War from within’: Trump tells military leaders they will take on cartels, crime in US cities

"Only in recent decades have politicians somehow come to believe that our job is to police the far reaches of Kenya and Somalia, while America is under invasion from within. We're under invasion from within," Trump said.

"No different than a foreign enemy, but more difficult in many ways, because they don't wear uniforms. At least when they're wearing a uniform, you can take them out. These people don't have uniforms, but we are under invasion from within. We're stopping it very quickly," he added, touching on crime and illegal immigration that has cropped up in the United States.

"We have many cities in great shape ... but it seems that the ones that are run by the radical left Democrats—what they've done to San Francisco, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles—they're very unsafe places, and we're going to straighten them out one by one. And this is going to be a major part for some of the people in this room. It's a war too. It's a war from within. Controlling the physical territory of our border is essential to national security. We can't let these people in."

Trump cited the crime crackdown in Washington, DC as a part of the "war from within" that has been taking place and said that 25 million have been able to flood into the US. "They would take their worst people, and their people from prisons and jail, and they'd put them in a caravan and they'd walk up,” he said of other foreign nations.

Trump then recounted how an illegal immigrant was able to get to the US after being let out of jail for murder, then added, "We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military, National Guard, but military. Because we're going into Chicago very soon."

Leading up to the speech from Trump, Hegseth announced a number of changes to grooming as well as fitness standards for the Department of War. "Each service will ensure that every requirement for every combat MOS, for every designated Combat Arms position, returns to the highest male standard only because this job is life or death. Standards must be met, and not just met. At every level we should seek to exceed the standard, to push the envelope, to compete," Hegseth announced, later adding, "We are also adding a combat field test for combat arms units that must be executable in any environment at any time and with combat equipment."