Ex-CIA analyst sounds alarm on Trump’s 'reorientation of the military' against US citizens

On Wednesday, October 29, the Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon had "ordered the National Guard to create 'quick reaction' forces in every state and territory by January that are trained and equipped to respond to riots and civil unrest within the U.S., according to internal Defense Department memos."

WSJ reporters Vera Bergengruen, Lara Seligman and Dan Lyon explained, "The riot control units are a major shift for the Pentagon, underscoring the Trump Administration's push to directly involve the military in responding to protests and other domestic missions that have been off-limits except in emergencies."

The next day on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," conservative host Joe Scarborough was troubled by the "rapid mobilization of troops against Americans" reported by the Journal and shared his concerns with fellow host Mika Brzezinski and Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Michigan) — a former analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who also served as an acting assistant Pentagon secretary.

Scarborough commented, "What the hell is going on? And I guess I could ask: Where is the Supreme Court right now?"

Slotkin is sponsoring a bill called the No Troops in Our Streets Act of 2025 in opposition to Trump's policies.

The Democratic U.S. senator told Scarborough and Brzezinski, "One of the things that I think most Americans don't like to see is troops in our streets, and he has flirted with putting not just National Guard on our streets, but putting active-duty military on the streets — giving them law enforcement responsibilities to arrest, to detain…. What we're experiencing under President Trump is one of the biggest reorientations of the U.S. military…. toward the use of force in the United States."

Slotkin continued, "I mean, it is significant what we are seeing…. As someone who did three tours in Iraq and places abroad, served abroad, I've only seen this kind of thing in other countries. And we don't imagine that it would be happening here, but the president has just a really fundamentally different view of how he should use people in uniform and federal law enforcement. And he's building units and reorienting away from things like China. "

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