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The US’s sharpening ideological polarization is affecting a wider and much more junior cross-section of the country’s armed forces and challenging the military’s ability to remain above the political fray, a former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff has said.

Retired Adm Mike Mullen, who was the US’s top military commander under presidents George W Bush and Barack Obama, called the political environment facing currently serving officers “challenging” and “the most dangerous time” in his memory.

Speaking at a security forum organized by the Aspen Institute thinktank on Wednesday, he warned that it had become much harder to maintain the armed forces’ traditional apolitical stance than when he served as joint chiefs chair between 2007 and 2011.

“I didn’t really understand how hard [the civilian-military relationship] was until I was in the middle of it,” he said. “I talked about the military being apolitical a lot in those four year and it’s only gotten harder. We have gotten so much more divided.”

Mullen’s comments follow accusations that the Trump administration has consciously sought to politicize the military by purging senior commanders and by deploying national guard units on unaccustomed law and order missions in American cities, including Washington DC, to counteract supposed “crime waves”.

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The head of U.S. Northern Command on Thursday contradicted President Trump’s assertion that an “invasion [from] within” or an “enemy within” justifies the commander in chief’s National Guard deployments to American cities.

“I do not have any indications of an enemy within,” Gen. Gregory Guillot told Senate Armed Services Committee lawmakers when asked about Trump’s comments. “We maintain readiness to execute the orders to defend the homeland in many ways, but I have not been tasked in that way.”

Trump in late September declared that “an enemy within” was reason to deploy guard members in the United States. He also said the military “should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military,” referring to Democratic-run cities. 

“This is going to be a big thing for the people in this room, because it’s the enemy from within, and we have to handle it before it gets out of control,” Trump told generals gathered Sept. 30 at Quantico, Va. “It won’t get out of control once you’re involved at all.”

Guillot’s remarks, at the top of a hearing on Trump’s guard deployment to several U.S. cities, underlined a point of contention between Republican and Democratic lawmakers, with the former arguing that the guard was needed to fight lawlessness as local officials had not done their job in keeping the public safe. Democrats, however, said the deployments were an abuse of military power that violated state rights.

“In recent years, violent crime, rioting, drug trafficking, and heinous gang activity have steadily escalated,” said the panel’s chair, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.).

He called the deployments to several U.S. cities, including Los Angeles; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; Portland; and Memphis “not only appropriate, but essential.”

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The U.S. Navy has submitted its report on the potential punishments for Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) over a recent video where he and other Democratic lawmakers told U.S. service members to disobey “illegal orders.”

The report, which was ordered by the Defense Department and referred to the Navy, was sent to the Pentagon’s Office of General Counsel, “where they are providing a legal review and input,” a department official told The Hill on Thursday.

“It defies belief that with all of the threats facing our country, Pete Hegseth initiated this ridiculous process to try to intimidate Senator Kelly for saying something Pete Hegseth himself has said repeatedly,” Kelly’s spokesperson told The Hill in a statement on Thursday.

Kelly was never contacted or notified about the report and “it sure as hell won’t stop him from doing his job representing Arizona, whether that is voting today to lower health care costs or making sure our service members have what they need to do a very difficult job,” the spokesperson said, adding that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Trump “could do themselves a big favor and learn about our country’s history, the Constitution and the rule of law.”

The Arizona senator retired from the Navy with the rank of captain and has deployed twice to the Persian Gulf. He has also worked as an instructor at the Naval Pilot School.

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Indiana state lawmakers have rejected a proposed map creating two new heavily red-leaning districts, a stunning blow to President Donald Trump's hotly contested redistricting campaign.

The state senate on Dec. 11 voted down a plan that would have made Indiana join a half-dozen other states that passed new congressional election maps ahead of the 2026 midterms. As a result, Trump was unable to convince enough Republican state senators to approve the redistricting plan, even though the GOP holds a supermajority in the chamber.More...

In a rare setback for Trump's party, 21 Republicans voted against the bill – more than the 19 who voted for it – while all 10 Democrats voted against it.

During a signing ceremony at the White House hours later, Trump downplayed his defeat in Indiana.

"I wasn’t working on it very hard," Trump told reporters, adding that he's won the state in the last three presidential elections. "It would’ve been nice. We would’ve picked up two seats if we did (win)."

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In Melekino, near Russian-occupied Mariupol, Russian soldiers who refuse to fight (refusniks) have reportedly been held for months in a basement.

The independent Russian outlet Astra, citing sources, reports that a soldier from Buryatia – identified under the assumed name “Yegor Kharin” for safety – arrived in Melekino in June 2025 and was immediately taken to the basement of an abandoned construction site.

Melekino, a resort village on the Sea of Azov about 20 kilometers from Mariupol, has been under Russian control since 2022. Astra says the unfinished building is the 24th such detention site it has identified since the Kremlin’s full-scale invasion.

“Darkness, gloom, no air, damp, cardboard boxes, pallets, bottles,” is how Kharin described the basement.

According to him, soldiers there said they had been held for eight months, sometimes a year.

“Those who left their unit without leave (AWOL), deserters, and non-deserters – they put all them there,” he said.

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A US judge on Wednesday morning blocked the deployment by the federal government of national guard troops in Los Angeles and ordered the guard returned to the control of the California governor, a court filing showed.

The Trump administration is being challenged in federal court over its authority and ratio

In a historically rare move, the Trump administration federalized California’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state.

Newsom called the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

On Wednesday, the US district judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s claim that recent protests against aggressive enforcement by the federal immigration authorities amounted to a rebellion.

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nale for continuing to maintain command over the national guard troops it deployed to the city earlier this year.

In a historically rare move, the Trump administration federalized California’s national guard in June, dispatching about 4,000 troops in response to protests in the city over immigration raids, despite opposition from the state’s Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, who quickly filed a lawsuit on behalf of the state.

Newsom called the move unprecedented and illegal, and the case has been unfolding in the courts for months.

On Wednesday, the US district judge Charles Breyer rejected the Trump administration’s claim that recent protests against aggressive enforcement by the federal immigration authorities amounted to a rebellion.