U.S. President Donald Trump and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer

As the Trump administration continues to push the boundaries of centuries-old constraints on domestic power, the Pentagon is reportedly developing a multi-million-dollar plan to create a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force”—armed with weapons and riot gear, ready to be deployed instantaneously to quell civil unrest anywhere in the nation.

An exclusive Washington Post report reveals that two National Guard teams of hundreds of troops, designed to be ready around the clock, would be stationed on opposite sides of the country, able to cross state lines on command.

“The plan calls for 600 troops to be on standby at all times so they can deploy in as little as one hour, the documents say. They would be split into two groups of 300 and stationed at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, with purview of regions east and west of the Mississippi River, respectively,” the Post reported on Tuesday.

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The price tag? Potentially hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Post calls it “another potential expansion of President Donald Trump’s willingness to employ the armed forces on American soil,” and notes that once again, the Trump administration is on “shaky” legal ground.

Legal experts are warning against the plan.

“You don’t want to normalize routine military participation in law enforcement,” Joseph Nunn, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, told the Post. “You don’t want to normalize routine domestic deployment.”

“When you have this tool waiting at your fingertips, you’re going to want to use it,” Nunn added. “It actually makes it more likely that you’re going to see domestic deployments — because why else have a task force?”

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The news follows President Trump’s unprecedented decision on Monday to federalize the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Police force to combat what he claims is out-of-control violence, despite the nation’s capital city having decreased violent crime by double digits in 2024 and again in the first half of 2025.

In response to the Post’s report on Tuesday, The Bulwark’s Bill Kristol noted, “So of course it’s not just D.C.”

Former constitutional law professor David Wemhoff, now the editor of The American Proposition, wrote that President Trump’s “purpose is to crush, fight Americans. He has no interest in fighting much less opposing China and Russia.”

“Ah, yes,” remarked former Trump national security official Miles Taylor, “nothing says ‘land of the free’ like a standing army ready to put down the people who disagree with you.”

Progressive researcher Derek Martin, formerly of the National Security Agency (NSA), commented: “President Trump is so afraid of protests he’s preparing to use the military to suppress them. Only tyrants think this way.”

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