This week, Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summoned America’s top generals to Quantico in what, on the surface, looked like a standard high-level briefing — all smiles, salutes, and strongman optics. But according to a former Trump insider, the real purpose behind the meeting may have been far more calculated — and far more disturbing.
Lev Parnas, once a political operative tied closely to Trump’s inner circle, dropped a bombshell in a recent Substack post. And if what he’s saying is true, this wasn’t just a show of force — it was a loyalty test, aided by cutting-edge surveillance tech.
“After breaking fast tonight, while preparing for dinner and catching up on the flood of missed calls and messages, I heard from sources I trust,” Parnas wrote. “And what I heard stopped me cold.”
According to Parnas, Trump and Hegseth weren’t simply rallying the troops. They were allegedly watching them — very closely — using artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology to monitor the generals’ every move and micro-expression in real time.
“The reason Trump and Pete Hegseth gathered all those generals in one room was not just about a loyalty speech or a pep rally,” Parnas continued. “I’m hearing that the Trump team used artificial intelligence and facial-recognition technology during those briefings to monitor the generals’ reactions in real time.”
And if that’s not chilling enough, he didn’t stop there.
“Every eyebrow raise, every flicker of doubt, every moment of discomfort was scanned and analyzed by an algorithm designed to detect who would obey orders without question—and who might resist.”
Let that sink in. A potential commander-in-chief using AI not to detect threats from foreign adversaries, but to size up his own military leadership — not for competence, but for obedience.
Parnas, who has been vocal in recent years about what he calls the authoritarian underpinnings of Trump’s political machine, says this is part of a larger pattern of internal surveillance and control.
“This same technology is being used as a tool inside Trump’s orbit — a quiet weapon of power, deployed by his loyalists to identify and weed out whistleblowers and anyone who isn’t completely obedient,” he wrote. “This is how authoritarian power consolidates itself — by quietly monitoring every reaction, every hesitation, every private doubt, and turning it into a scorecard of allegiance.”
If true, this isn’t just paranoia — it’s a play straight out of an authoritarian handbook: assemble your generals, watch them squirm, and let the machines tell you who’s all-in and who’s not.
The sheer audacity of the alleged tactics should raise serious questions. Are we looking at a president rallying the troops, or the rehearsal for something darker?
