Trump's Trials - Could Trump really use the U.S. military against Americans?

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

National security scholar Tom Nichols argues that Trump has taken control of the nation's intelligence and justice systems and is now testing the military's independence. He speaks to NPR's Andrew Limbong. Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

I'm Scott Detrow, and this is Trump's Terms from NPR. We're under invasion from within. If you're not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will. We all serve at the pleasure of the president. The golden age of America is upon us. We are in the golden age. Every episode, we bring you one of NPR's latest stories about the 47th president, and now he is trying to remake the federal government.

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Podcast. Fridays are where we spend our whole show sharing all the greatest new releases of the week. Make the hunt for new music a part of your life again. Tap into New Music Friday from All Songs Considered, available wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Andrew Limbong. Here's a line that caught our eye this week. Quote, to capture a democratic nation, authorities must control three sources of power, the intelligence agencies, the justice system, and the military.

end quote. That's from a piece written by Tom Nichols in the Atlantic. Nichols is a staff writer there and a professor emeritus of national security affairs at the U.S. Naval War College, and he argues that President Trump has already brought America's intel agencies and the justice system under his control, but the military remains the last obstacle, at least for now. Professor Nichols, welcome to all things considered. Thank you. Thanks for having me. So the central fear in your piece, as I understand it, is that the president aims to use the U.S. military to exert control over Americans. Lay out the evidence for our listeners that that is what he intends to do. Well, I think all you have to do is look at the way he is sending troops into cities that don't want

him there. Troops into cities and states where the governors and the mayors have said, no, thank you. We don't need your help. And he's been doing this almost since the moment he came into office. And I think he's trying to acclimate Americans to having troops in the streets, to using the military as a show of force and a display of his personal power by putting them into cities specifically in places where they're not wanted to get people use the idea that he can do with the military whatever he wants. You know, the president has faced legal issues over his military orders, right? But he's also fired the top legal military officers.

And as I understand it, Defense Secretary Hexath argued that he didn't want lawyers to block orders by the commander-in-chief. What is at stake here, particularly when it comes to the role the law is supposed to play here? Well, if you're firing all your top lawyers, that should raise a suspicion that you're about to issue orders

that are not legal or else you wouldn't be worried about what your lawyers are going to tell you. And I think that these are all moves that should worry Americans and make them very concerned about the state of their democracy. Yeah.

In your piece, you harken back to the stable days of 2017, right? You cite this quote from Air Force General John Hyde. Hayton, who is then head of the U.S. Strategic Command, and he was asked at this panel about, like, what do you do when the president asks you to do something illegal? Can you just, like, break down how it, quote-unquote, usually works? Ah, the good old days of 2017. Yeah. General Heighton was asked, how would you react to an illegal

order? And I think when you're talking about the commander of U.S. strategic nuclear forces, that's a really interesting question. And General Heighton said, well, I would simply tell the president that's not legal. And Heighton said, I'm sure the president would then say, well, what would be legal? Well, that is probably true of all 45 presidents except this one, who will probably say, if his track record on such things as any evidence, and as I pointed out in the piece, don't worry about what's legal. I'll cover you.

I've got that taken care of. And I think especially now that the Supreme Court has granted Trump effectively monarchical immunity as a president. I don't imagine that he would say, well, oh, thank you, General, for telling me what's not legal. Please tell me what I can do that is legal. I think he's going to say, I've given you an order, do it, and I've got your back. I'll cover you. President Trump has said that the military strikes on drug cartels are meant to protect Americans, right?

And I think in your piece, you weren't that that could open the door, again, to using the military against Americans themselves. Can you make that link for us? Well, the president's decided that he can kill these drug runners because they are effectively terrorists. He calls them narco-terrorists. And as an aside, I should point out, this is part of the problem of the promiscuous use of the word terrorist ever since 9-11, that anybody we want to take out is, by definition, a terrorist. So the president has said, these people are terrorists, I have the right to kill terrorists, I have the right to kill terrorists on my own determination and without interference from anybody else. It's not a big jump from there to say, I have a right to kill terrorists anywhere I want to kill them, including here in the United States. I want to end this conversation, sort of where we started.

So you argue that the intelligence agencies and the justice system have fallen in line with the president. What can stop the military from doing so? Well, agencies that have civilian leaders in them are easier to capture because you can just fire people as Trump did and bring in someone completely on. qualified, completely without any background, somebody like Tulsi Gabbard, who really has no business being the director of national intelligence. She has no background in it. Her only qualification is that she's loyal to Donald Trump. That's harder to do if you're trying to replace three and four star generals and admirals, because those organizations in the military commanded by two, three, four star officers, they rely on those officers to have that 25 or 30 years of

experience. There's a reason that they have that third and fourth star, because they bring with them a particular qualification. You can't simply fire a four-star officer and turn to some, you know, captain or major and say, tell you what, you're a general now, because the result would be disaster not only for the military as an organization, but it would put our national security and our national defense in mortal peril, and people realize that. You're going to need people who have actual military experience. Tom Nichols is a staff writer at the Atlantic. Tom, thank you so much for taking the time.

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dice and more. Again, that's plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.