Trump takes questions as military says National Guard members on DC streets to be armed | LIVE

WASHINGTON -- Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered that National Guard troops patrolling the streets of Washington for President Donald Trump's instrumentality enforcement crackdown volition beryllium armed, the Pentagon said Friday.

The Defense Department didn't instantly connection immoderate different details astir the caller improvement oregon wherefore it was needed.

The measurement is simply a escalation successful Trump's involution into policing successful the nation's superior and comes arsenic astir 2,000 National Guard members are stationed successful the city, with the accomplishment this week of hundreds of troops from respective Republican-led states.

The Pentagon and Army said past week that troops would not transportation weapons.

The metropolis had been informed astir the intent for the National Guard to beryllium armed, a idiosyncratic acquainted with the conversations said earlier this week. The idiosyncratic was not authorized to disclose the plans and spoke connected the information of anonymity.

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AP writer Anna Johnson contributed to this report.