Texas calls back National Guard members after some heavyset troops face viral mockery

Social media users appear to have bullied Texas into pulling some members of the Texas National Guard deployed to aid Trump’s Chicago crackdown.

Trump’s deployment of 200 Texas National Guard members to Chicago is basically a made-for-TV intimidation tactic to strike fear in his critics, particularly liberals, whom he’s vowed to vanquish using their own government’s military. A federal judge attested to this last week, when she ruled there was no “danger of rebellion” in Chicago and barred Trump from deploying troops for two weeks.

And now it looks like this stunt is due for a recast.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott said he was sending the “elite Texas National Guard” to Chicago, but over the weekend the Texas Military Department confirmed to the defense-focused news outlet Task & Purpose that some guard members were called home for what it described vaguely as noncompliance. 

The personnel change came after a now-viral ABC News photo, posted to X, showed several heavyset Guard troops arriving in Chicago, which elicited insults mocking their weight and appearance. Some also noted they appeared at odds with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s recent denunciation of “fat troops.”