"That's Hitleresque" -- Maj. Gen. William Enyart (Ret.) Describes Donald Trump's Proclamation of Fighting the "Enemy Within."
[Editor’s notes: The quotes from individuals cited below have been edited for clarity.]
On September 30, 2025, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and President Donald J. Trump1 summoned 800 top military commanders to Quantico, Virginia. (I wrote earlier this week about Trump’s rambling, incoherent speech here.)
Maj. Gen. William Enyart (Ret.) and Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) were invited to MNSBC’s The Weeknight to discuss the two speeches later that evening. Neither of the men minced words about the two unfathomably bad speeches from both Hegseth and Trump.
“The words that Donald Trump used today, ‘enemy from within,’ I mean, that’s Hitleresque. That is right out of Nazi Germany. That is not constitutional speech. That is not the speech we stand for in this country, where we believe in the rule of law,” said Maj. Gen. William Enyart (Ret.).
But as we’ve all come to understand, President Trump and his apparatchiks don’t believe in he rule of law, at least not for themselves. The regime also thinks it’s fine when ICE breaks laws, too, as many are witnessing and experiencing firsthand on the ground in cities across the country, where people, even those legally here, are being violently arrested and disappeared into a massive, bureaucratic, labyrinthine carceral system. (And I’ll state it again, as I did in my previous posts: if one is “undocumented,” it is a civil violation, it is not a criminal violation. ICE shouldn’t be “sweeping” people up off our streets and abusing their human rights.)
Enyart continued, “And the way that he talks about cities, that cities are full of ‘enemies.’ Why? Because they voted for Democrats. They voted Blue. So they have to become enemies. And he wants to use the military in our cities? The military is designed, and our mission is to . . . the military is [here] to protect our nation. The military is not to police our nation. His misuse of the military breaches the very trust the military has in our civilian leadership.”
It’s key to note that Hertling and Enyart are steeped in military values and traditions, something that those 800 top military commanders also share with them. Hence, the men and women sitting in that room on September 30 have the same sentiments.
As for Hegseth’s professional abilities, Enyart did not hold back on expressing how he thought Hegseth was out of his depth in the role he has. “He is incompetent. We value competency. He has not earned his spurs. He has zero experience. He has great hair. Ok? I wish I had his hair, but . . .”
Former Chair of the Republican National Committee and Co-host of MSNBC’s The Weeknight, Michael Steele, then turned to Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling (Ret.) for more insights and analysis of the disastrous event from the fascist duo.
Steele discussed how there is a line between civilian leadership and military leadership for a reason, but added that Hegseth and Trump not only crossed the “rubicon,” but “blowed [sic] it up.” Most importantly, Steele noted that we are not at war with anybody, “except to the extent that they want to create a war within our country.2 This president and this secretary are now drawing lines that are inappropriate to the Constitution and definitely an insult to the men and women serving in uniform, sitting in that room, who were called to be there.”
He asked Hertling, “If you are talking to them [the generals and admirals who were in the room], what do you hear? And what do you say to them? What should we, as a nation, be saying to them?”
Hertling responded:
We’ve created a bridgehead over the rubicon. It’s not just crossing it. We’ve put some things on the other side in a big way. You ask if I’m talking to them, I am. I won’t talk about those conversations that I’ve had with active duty members of the military. But the ones I’ve talked to are insulted by what’s happened today, especially the women I’ve talked to. Some of the women whom I served with.
I know the men and women who were in that room; many of them worked for me. I haven’t been retired that long. Some of those three and four star generals were colonels and liuetenant colonels with me in different units, so I know them, and I know the strength of their character. The worth of them as human beings, and as leaders.
The military is a tightly-knit group of people. They have worked together for decades, as Hertling points out. They forge deep bonds with one another and turn to each other to discuss serious matters, such as what happened on September 30th.
Hertling continued:
What we saw today were two very different kinds of presentations. One by Secretary Hegseth and the other one by the president.
One was insulting and demeaning, and violated every king of leadership principle that you can imagine. There is one specific, important principle: you praise in public and you discipline in private.
Well, we had a secretary of defense who purposely brought people into an auditorium with one camera—they got to choose—and in fact in front of the entire nation, he basically berated them. And my jaw was dropping as I watched that portion of the ceremony today.
Hegseth made a point to dress down the 800 top military officials, at one point complaining about “fat troops” and “fat generals and admirals in the halls of the Pentagon,” declaring it to be unacceptable. He equated part of this to “wokeness,” DEI, and insisted that they follow an ultra-masculine military ethos, which he apparently espouses. (It’s no wonder the women in the audience were insulted.) He also wants to do away with equal opportunity, whistleblowers, the inspector general’s office, and complaint procedures that allow military personnel to report misconduct and harassment, which obviously includes sexual harassment cases. “We are done with that shit,” he crudely put.
Hertling commented on Hegseth’s inappropriate language and style, indicating that it suggested worse things about him than simply having a crude way of explaining his thoughts:
Yes, Hegseth did serve. And truthfully he talked to these senior ranking officials—who have many more years of experience than he does—much like he probably talked to his platoon, as a platoon leader, and that was the difference. He was probably not that good of a platoon leader.
Ouch! That’s not a great thing to hear from a retired lieutenant general, especially when you’re now running the entire show at the Pentagon. Why does Hertling feel that way? He has an answer: “I don’t know for sure [if he was a bad platoon leader], but I would guess that based on, first of all, some of the things in his book, which by the way, he quoted today. He quoted from his own book to these generals and admirals, which I found a little discouraging.”
Hertling is being lenient in his remarks about Hegseth, quoting from his own book. It’s not just discouraging! It’s embarrassing. Who summons 800 generals and admirals to then quote from their own book, one that’s filled with hackneyed and false ideas about patriotism, masculinity, and whatever other nonsense his ghostwriter opted to throw in there? None other than Pete Hegseth, that’s who.
As for the president’s speech, Hertling had this to say:
Then you transition to the president, who, for seventy-some minutes told a lot of lies tha thave all been fact-checked. He included some facts that the men and women in that room know more about than he does. When he said he’d solved seven wars, I guarantee you there were generals and admirals from those war zones who will say, ‘Not so fast, bud. We’re there.’ And none of these wars have been solved or completed. There’s been no peace agreements in anoy of these locations.
Quelle surprise! Donald Trump is lying once again. After his first time in power, the Washington Post stated that “Trump had accumulated 30,573 untruths during his presidency, averaging about 21 erroneous claims a day.” If it was that bad during his first tenure in office, it is far worse now. (And why can’t the Post call them what they are? Lies. Bald-faced lies. Not ‘untruths,’ Post people, but lies.) In short, Trump lies a lot, which is another insult to the 800 top commanders who were summoned to have to listen to his rambling lies. Even worse, in that moment, Trump is also informing them that he plans to weaponize the military against so-called enemies of his “from within.” (Basically, anyone who didn’t vote for Trump, as Enyart pointed out, is his enemy now.)
Hertling concluded:
I think [the speech] politicized the military, and it put a further wedge between that the civil military relationship, which is so important in any democracy.”
There are a lot of people asking me, ‘How come the generals aren’t doing something? How come the generals aren’t saying things?’ It’s because we don’t do those things. That’s called a coup. And in a democracy, you try to do your very best to support the individuals who got the most votes in the election. Unfortunately, well, I won’t say that . . . but Mr. Trump got the most votes and Secretary Hegseth was comissioned into his job by a vote from the senators.
Hertling’s point raises an interesting thought about a military coup, one I don’t have an answer to. If things become worse, worse than they already are, and they are already pretty bad, would this current military attempt a coup against this stark-raving mad president, especially if there were to be a popular uprising, forcing the military to take a side? Whom will the military side with? A tyrannical regime that sees the majority of us as “enemies from within,” or the American people?
I argue that the war is already here, and ICE and CBP are carrying it out.
They would side with the people.
Love your writing! Thank you for weeding through it all.