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Pentagon officials are holding private discussions about how the Pentagon would respond if President Donald Trump sent active-duty troops into the country and ordered mass layoffs of apolitical employees. He told CNN that he is.
President Trump has signaled a willingness to use active-duty troops for domestic law enforcement and mass deportations, and has linked the federal government with his supporters, calling for “corrupt relationships” within the U.S. national security establishment. He expressed his desire to “wipe out everyone.”
In his final term, Trump had troubled relationships with many military leaders, including now-retired Gen. Mark Milley, who took steps to limit Trump’s ability to use nuclear weapons while chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Meanwhile, the president-elect has repeatedly called US generals “woke,” “weak,” and “incompetent leaders.”
Officials are currently working out various scenarios for an overhaul of the Pentagon.
“We’re all preparing and planning for the worst-case scenario, but the reality is we don’t know yet what will happen,” said one defense official.
Trump’s election has also raised questions within the Pentagon about what happens when the president issues illegal orders, especially when political appointees within the department do not push back.
“The military is forced by law not to follow illegal orders,” said another defense official. “But the question is, what happens after that? Will there be resignations of military leaders? Or will they see it as an abandonment of the people?” ”
It is currently unclear who Trump will choose to lead the Pentagon, but officials believe he and his team will try to avoid a “adversarial” relationship like the one with the military during the previous administration. said a former defense official with experience in the administration. First Trump administration.
“The relationship between the White House and the Pentagon was really, really bad… so we know that the most important issue is how we choose the people we bring into the Pentagon this time,” the former official said.
Defense officials are also scrambling to identify military personnel that could be affected if President Trump reinstates Schedule F, an executive order he first issued in 2020. If enacted, this executive order would reclassify a huge portion of non-political career federal employees across the U.S. government. It becomes easier to ignite.
Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said Tuesday: “I have full faith that our nation’s leaders will continue to do the right thing no matter what, and that our Congress will do the right thing to support our military.” I believe it will continue.”
The biggest concern for many defense officials is how President Trump plans to use U.S. military power domestically.
President Trump said last month that the military should be used to deal with what he called “the enemy from within” and “far-left lunatics.”
“I think it should be handled very easily, by the National Guard if necessary, or by the military if it’s really necessary, because we can’t allow that to happen,” he said, referring to potential protests on Election Day. ” he added.
Several former military officials who served in the Trump administration, including Milley and Trump’s former chief of staff, retired Gen. John Kelly, have warned of Trump’s authoritarian impulses in recent years. Before the election, Kelly said Trump “fits the standard definition of a fascist” and spoke of his loyalty to Hitler’s Nazi generals.
There is not much the Pentagon can do to preemptively protect the military from potential abuses of power by the commander-in-chief. Although Pentagon lawyers can and do make recommendations to military leaders on the legality of the order, there are no real legal safeguards to prevent President Trump from sending American troops to police America’s streets. There is no plan.
A former senior Pentagon official who served under the Trump administration said he believes additional active-duty troops will likely be tasked with supporting Customs and Border Protection at the southern border.
There are already thousands of troops on the border, including active duty, National Guard and Reserve troops. The Biden administration sent 1,500 active-duty military personnel last year and has since sent hundreds more.
However, former officials said troops could be sent to U.S. cities if asked to help with the mass deportation plan that Trump repeatedly mentioned on the campaign trail.
Domestic law enforcement agencies “don’t have the manpower, they don’t have the helicopters, they don’t have the trucks, they don’t have the expeditionary capabilities” that the military brings, he said. But he stressed that the decision to send active-duty troops to America’s streets cannot be taken lightly.
“You can never downplay it, you can never say with a straight face that it’s not a big deal. It’s a big deal,” said the former official. “But it’s the only way to deal with large-scale problems.”
Separately, Army officials told CNN that while it is conceivable that the Trump administration would order thousands of additional troops to support border security missions, it would be a challenge to the military’s own preparedness to deal with foreign threats. warned that it could cause damage.
The president’s powers would be particularly broad if he chose to invoke the Insurrection Act, which allows the president to unilaterally send troops into the country in certain limited circumstances that involve protecting constitutional rights.
Another law, the Posse Policing Act, aims to curb the use of military to enforce the law unless authorized by Congress. But the law includes exceptions for insurrection and terrorism, which would ultimately give the president wide discretion to decide whether and when to invoke the Insurrection Act.
President Trump reportedly considered invoking the law in 2020 to quell protests after the death of George Floyd.
“If a city or state refuses to take the necessary steps to protect life and property where they live, I will deploy the U.S. military to quickly resolve the issue,” he said at the time.
In a video posted last year, Trump said that if elected, he would “immediately reissue my 2020 executive order restoring the president’s authority to remove corrupt officials… It will wipe everything out.” There are many. ”
The Pentagon is already preparing for policy changes.
“My emails have been flooded with this topic. It’s definitely going to be a busy few months,” one defense official said of Schedule F.
After President Trump first issued Schedule F late in his last term, the Pentagon and other federal agencies were tasked with creating a list of which employees would be moved into that category. At the time, defense officials tried to keep civilian personnel from participating as much as possible to limit the impact on employees, officials said. The ministry is currently compiling a similar list.
In April, the Office of Personnel Management announced rules aimed at strengthening guardrails to protect federal employees. But “there are still ways for the new administration to circumvent these protections,” a defense official said, even if it takes several months.
Austin has repeatedly warned about the risks of political abuse of the military. In a memo in July, he said, “We will protect the integrity of the military by ensuring that the Pentagon’s career civilians, like their uniformed counterparts, are protected from illegal and other inappropriate political abuses.” We need to ensure consistency and continuity.”
He added that career civil servants have a mission to “maintain strict political neutrality with a focus on loyalty to the U.S. Constitution and laws.”
And on Wednesday, he said in a message to the U.S. military that it would only follow lawful orders.
“As always, the U.S. military stands ready to implement the policy choices of the next commander-in-chief and follow all lawful orders from the civilian chain of command,” he wrote. “You are the United States military, the greatest fighting force on earth, and you will continue to protect our country, our Constitution, and the rights of all of our citizens.”
At the State Department, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an email to staff on Friday that he intends to send a clear message to the incoming Trump administration that “all of you are patriots.”
The message, obtained by CNN, acknowledged that “transitions can be uncertain times that raise questions about what comes next for our work around the world, for the State Department itself, and for its people.” was.
At first glance, it’s a sharp message. The State Department saw a significant turnover of career diplomats during Trump’s first administration, with some career executives targeted as part of President Trump’s first impeachment.
CNN’s Oren Lieberman and Jennifer Hansler contributed reporting.
