Jonah Goldberg, editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and longtime Never-Trumper, suggested that the Democrats could send the military to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans.
Goldberg framed his comments during a panel discussion on violent crime in major Democrat-run cities, comparing it to Donald Trump’s efforts to use federal resources to restore order in places like Chicago.
Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson signed an executive order last month, titled the “Protecting Chicago Initiative,” aimed at preventing the potential deployment of the National Guard by President Donald Trump to address the city’s rampant crime issues.
Johnson, a far-left Democrat, claims the order is necessary to defend residents’ constitutional rights amid fears of what he calls an “unconstitutional and illegal military occupation.”
The executive order comes as the Trump administration considers using Naval Station Great Lakes, a Navy base near Chicago, as a staging ground for immigration enforcement operations involving more than 200 Department of Homeland Security (DHS) agents.
Trump has been vocal about addressing Chicago’s crime woes, recently stating after deploying the National Guard to Washington, D.C., that his team would “straighten out” Chicago next, calling it “a mess” under an “incompetent mayor.”
During a CNN interview, Goldberg argued that if Republicans set certain precedents (like Trump’s use of power), then Democrats could use the same logic on issues they care about, such as guns.
He claimed if a Democratic governor like Pritzker (IL) or Newsom (CA) says “We have a gun crisis in America”, then under that precedent, they could justify sending in the National Guard to confiscate guns.
“I’m all for crime reduction. But the conservatives were celebrating this. You listen to the mayor of Chicago talk about the gun crisis in America. Well, what is to stop—given the precedent that Donald Trump is setting—what is to stop a Democrat, a Governor Pritzker, a Governor Newsom, from saying, “We have a gun crisis in America, just as legitimate on the facts and arguments as a crime crisis, and we’re going to send the National Guard into states to go get their guns”? There have to be standards here.”
WATCH:
CNN is now floating the idea that the next Democratic President will order the military to go door-to-door to confiscate firearms from law-abiding Americans.
I sincerely hope they never get that stupid.
That’s what you would call the start of our second Civil War. pic.twitter.com/PdFVwzErqg
— Gunther Eagleman™ (@GuntherEagleman) September 2, 2025
