With President Donald Trump having deployed the National Guard to patrol Washington, D.C. for weeks as part of his takeover of the district, and lawsuits advancing against it, there is another issue Trump has to contend with, CNN's Jeff Zeleny told anchor Boris Sanchez on Thursday: the rock-bottom morale of guardsmen who were called up only to realize they had little to no purpose.
"Walk us through what you're hearing," said Sanchez.
"Well, Boris ... we have seen these National Guardsmen and airmen around the city, but they are largely spending most of their time in areas where tourists populate on the National Mall, on the Wharf, and other things," said Zeleny. "But we've been talking to a lot of the soldiers and their families, actually, to get an actual sense of what is going on."
"Of course, these members of the National Guard are used to being deployed to emergencies and things across the country, but they're not exactly sure, in some cases, what they're doing here," said Zeleny. "They're spending a lot of time walking around, some time working on beautification projects, but one father of a guardsman in Tennessee told our reporters this. He said, 'I don't know what he thought he would be doing, but I really don't think he thought he would just be walking around for 12 hours every day. When I talked to him, he was just like, yeah, this is crazy.'"
Further, he continued, "one other wife of a guardsman who was deployed here to Washington — again, everyone says that they are willing to serve, but the question is, what exactly is the deployment? And this wife was very interesting as she told our team this: 'It's a little unusual in terms of what the National Guard is usually deployed for, but I mean, I guess I would say I'm open to it. I feel like maybe they would get a little boost in morale if they could just get a little bit more detail.'"
"So that is sort of the question here: what are they doing, necessarily?" he added. "Of course, they're helping to keep the city safe and secure, but they are spending a lot of time walking around and other D.C. National Guard people are cleaning up the parks. And of course, that is not necessarily what they signed up for."
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