Donald Trump promises a new ‘Space National Guard’ if he retakes White House

Donald Trump pledged on Monday to create a Space National Guard if he retakes the White House in November’s presidential election.

The issue has been hotly debated by the Pentagon, congressional legislators, and state governors, turning it into what has been dubbed a “political lightning rod.”

At a campaign stop in Detroit Monday, Trump told members of the National Guard Association that one of his “proudest achievements” in office was the creation of the Space Force.

“It’s a big deal,” the Republican presidential nominee told the attendees.

Trump, who is floundering as Democratic rival Vice President Kamala Harris surges in the polls, said the “time has come to create a Space National Guard as the primary combat reserve of the US Space Force.”

He told the crowd that Senator Marco Rubio, a Florida Republican who Trump denigrated during the 2016 primaries as “Little Marco,” was a big supporter of a Space National Guard, supposedly telling the 45th president: “I love this, I love it, I love it.”

“So, we’re going to do that,” Trump went on. “Space Force has been very important. Very, very important. When I did that, the, the people came in, they wanted to end it, and they were just hammered, because people realized how important we were getting, just, destroyed in space.”

The existing National Guard presently has space-centric units in seven states — Alaska, California, Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, New York, and Ohio — and Guam.

The concept of a separate Space National Guard has been floating around since 2019, when Trump established the Space Force. National Guard leaders have come out in favor of such a plan. However, many experts have criticized any such initiative as one that would create unnecessary bureaucracy,