Former President and GOP presidential frontrunner Donald Trump arrived at the U.S.-Mexico border yesterday in his signature blue suit and spoke to a small crowd while flanked by law enforcement and military personnel.
A widely circulated video of the press event threw up red flags for veterans, as Trump — using rhetoric from a recent appearance at CPAC — said “we have languages coming in to our country, no one even speaks those languages…they’re truly foreign languages, nobody speaks them.”
Trump: People who don’t speak languages. We have languages coming in to our country, nobody that speaks those languages. They’re truly foreign languages. Nobody speaks them pic.twitter.com/IzRKM5TOue
— Acyn (@Acyn) February 29, 2024
U.S. Air Force pilot Jahara Matisek, a military professor in the Department of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, responded to the video with a question: “Why is there an Air Force 2-star general (probably ANG) in the frame at what appears to be a political event?”
[Note: ANG is Air National Guard.]
Air National Guard Lt. Colonel and former U.S. Representative Adam Kinzinger (D-IL) replied to Matisek’s observation: “Good question. Trump isn’t president so this is by definition a campaign event, and nobody in uniform can participate.”
Good question. Trump isn’t president so this is by definition a campaign event, and nobody in uniform can participate. https://t.co/XG8M6Tx0R1
— Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) (@AdamKinzinger) February 29, 2024
Matisek, who says it “looks like Major General Thomas Suelzer,” added that his presence in uniform is “110% improper. If President Biden was there instead, it would then be legal. But I’m pretty sure my two decades of annual training about allowed political activities says that you cannot be present in uniform for a campaign speech by a non-elected official.”
Note: According to the National Guard, Suelzer is the senior uniformed Texas National Guard officer and head of the Texas Military Department. Appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott in 2022, Suelzer “functions as the Governor’s principal adviser on military matters and is responsible for the strategic leadership, training, readiness, operational employment and performance of the Army and Air Force components of the Texas National Guard.”
Polit Sci degree too pic.twitter.com/VsMD7nptmj
— jaimï (@jaimi85012502) March 1, 2024
Bulwark writer Joe Perticone agreed with Matisek: “Not the best look for Maj. Gen. Thomas Suelzer on Trump’s shoulder, nodding along in uniform while a political candidate goes on a racist tirade at a lectern displaying his campaign’s fundraising number.”
It’s 110% improper. If President Biden was there instead, it would then be legal. But I’m pretty sure my two decades of annual training about allowed political activities says that you cannot be present in uniform for a campaign speech by a non-elected official.
— FRANKY (@JaharaMatisek) February 29, 2024
Note: Matisek is the co-author of the book Old & New Battlespaces; Society, Military Power, and War, which reveals “how today’s civil society, technology, and military organizations are dramatically transforming warfare—in a world in which war is at once everywhere and nowhere, and nearly everything can be weaponized.”