Trump's Plans To Stop The Transfer Of Power & Martial Law In DC With Russ Bellant

Trump's appointment of fascist Steve Miller is a warning that he is preparing to stop the transfer of power to the Democrats in Congress in January. Russ Bellant is a writer and researcher on Fascism in the US and internationally. He talks about the preparation by Hegsweth for martial law in DC and also why the appointment of Steve Miller is a warning
of his plans to stop the transfer of power in the Congress to the Democrats.
This interview was done on 11/7/26

Additional Media:
Turning Point USA The Rise Of Fascism in Education Military The State & Support For Global Fascism https://youtu.be/CepR68RrMAg

Trump’s Attempts to Control Higher Education Follow a Familiar Fascist Playbook
https://truthout.org/articles/trumps-attempts-to-control-higher-education-follow-a-familiar-fascist-playbook/

Taking The Fifth & Charlie Kirk
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/GPO-J6-TRANSCRIPT-CTRL0000083775/pdf/GPO-J6-TRANSCRIPT-CTRL0000083775.pdf

The Normalization Of Charles Kirk & Trump's Plan For Fascist Martial Law
https://youtu.be/RF4oHspg2sA

Trump, The Rise Of Fascism & The Fascist Government
https://youtu.be/Xfqay_z2B70

Trump, The Rise Of Fascism & The Fascist Government
The Coming Fascist Government, Trump, The Nazis and Their New "Min Kampf”
https://youtu.be/F7LYC9qKzGI

If Trump Wins, Fascism, Project 2025, The Unions & Democracy
https://youtu.be/tIJ5TwVwdJ8

Production Of Labor Video Project
http://www.labormedia.net

STEVE ZELTZER: This is Steve Zeltzer with Pacifica. And as a result of the election, Trump has now appointed Steve Miller to be the chief of staff in the government and in his administration. And there's some very serious events that are taking place that raise questions about whether Trump is going to prevent the transfer of power to the Democratic Party. And joining us is Russ Bellant. He's a researcher on fascism and the right wing, and he's been looking at some of the actions that both Hegseth and the President have taken. Welcome to our show, Russ.

RUSS BELLANT: Thank you, Steve. It's an honor to be with you always.

STEVE ZELTZER: So Russ, most people don't know, but the National Guard are still in Washington, DC. What is the new situation that's taking place?

RUSS BELLANT: Well, there's 3,000 National Guardsmen in Washington, DC, sent out from red states by red governors, and there is a prospect that some of them, about 600 to 700, could be recalled, now that some of those states now have Democrats for governor. And Washington, DC is actually asking — there's some official communication to those governors asking them to withdraw their troops. They ostensibly were there — the pretense was that they were there to help fight crime, which of course is unconstitutional. No armed forces of the United States are created or allowed to be a law enforcement agency, because that's obviously a step toward having a military dictatorship. So they've been relatively quiet there after Trump put them there over a year ago. And now the administration, through Peter Hegseth, has added more equipment: Humvees, patrol cars, and boats — 60 land vehicles, and I don't know how many boats. And obviously they're looking at the prospect of reactivating them and, by using Humvees, possibly grabbing people off of the street. The purpose, they say, is to stop drug trafficking. Nobody knows that — that's what the DEA is for. The feds at the DEA are for that, but the DEA doesn't have the same artillery, if you will, as the army does. So there we are. It's an unsettling development, and this just happened some days ago.

STEVE ZELTZER: Trump, of course, is worried that if there is a transfer of power, his family, who've been involved in corruption, would be facing hearings by the Democratic-controlled Congress. They could be prosecuted and investigated. And he, of course, is a target because of his open corruption, bribery, and malfeasance in office. Do you think there's some reason to be concerned that he will prevent a transfer of power?

RUSS BELLANT: On October 6th, he gave heavy praise to Russell Vought, saying that he's one of the great thinkers of government in American history. Of course, Russell Vought was the prime organizer of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025, and Trump appointed him over the Office of Management and Budget. But the same day that Trump said this, Vought published a piece — in his publication that he has as a separate outside activity — that said, are we obligated to seat candidates who are against the Constitution? And of course, saying somebody's against the Constitution is a matter of subjectivity, matters of opinion. In the Trump administration, they say — in National Security Presidential Memorandum Number Seven, which was issued September 25th of 2025; again, National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 — that if you have extreme views about race issues, gender issues, immigration issues, if you're against capitalism — they have a whole laundry list of different things — then you are a national security threat. So if you have people taking office, here's the question Russell Vought put in writing: do we have to seat these people? And Trump thought this was a brilliant idea, that we will prevent the seating of these folks. Now, in the House of Representatives, the session ends January 3rd. So who runs the seating for the new members? It's the clerk that does that. So we have to watch and see, when Congress reconvenes, whether they change the clerk to somebody who's a MAGA zealot and who says, I will not seat these people and I will not swear them in. They close sessions and others — well, this could be the same thing with this group, and they could make sure that they deny seating and drag this out for months and months, and have it go through the courts and all this other stuff, and the Supreme Court will scratch their head on it maybe for months and months, and meanwhile the Republicans will still control the Congress.

STEVE ZELTZER: And the fact that Trump wants to keep Hegseth in office — do you think that's a sign that he wants to use the military, potentially, to keep him in power?

RUSS BELLANT: His very appointment was a sign of that. Folks may remember in 2020, Donald Trump gave an order to the Secretary of Defense at that time that said: start shooting the George Floyd protesters. Use the US Army. Start shooting them. And the Secretary of Defense said, I'm not going to issue that order. He said, well, all you have to do is wound them. And he said, I will not issue an order that is illegal and unconstitutional. And Trump didn't expect that. And this Secretary of Defense — I'm sorry, I'm blanking on his name — was eventually replaced. By the time he was replaced, the elections were getting close, and Trump wasn't going to start shooting people during the election campaign. But this was early in 2020. Now, with Pete Hegseth, he'll never get a no to that kind of an order. When Senator Elissa Slotkin asked him during his confirmation hearings whether he would follow an order to shoot protesters, he ducked the answer. There is speculation in some media outlets that Hegseth will be replaced as sort of a concessionary thing to Democrats, but I don't see that happening. The fact that they appointed Steve Miller as chief of staff means that they're getting ready to confront the Democratic wave. They're going to have, it looks like, 250 seats in the House of Representatives. The Republicans are going to have, what, 185? Fifty-five, fifty-six senators, with Mississippi getting concluded and the Democrat looking stronger. He's going to be the first Black senator from Mississippi since Reconstruction — for one and a half centuries, right? And it looks like they're going to use aggressive confrontation.

STEVE ZELTZER: The issue of protecting democratic rights and allowing for the transfer of power is an important issue for the American working class, the unions. And Shawn Fain has called for a general strike in 2028 — that if they do attempt to stop the transfer of power, that would probably be the time for workers in this country to say enough is enough. We're not going to allow this.

RUSS BELLANT: Shawn Fain was very engaged in putting US Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed into a victory position. They're very committed to that, and Michigan. If they try to do that, I do expect there will be civil rights, labor networks organizing marches on Washington. And at that point, I expect ICE and whatever other elements they choose to employ, including the National Guard that we started out talking about, will do everything they can to block these people. I think the Steve Miller appointment is a signal of street confrontation at multiple levels, including protesters, and including, quote, enforcing the National Security Presidential Memorandum Number Seven — saying that your over-aggression on immigration issues and race issues is threatening national security, and you're going to be arrested and prosecuted. You remember the protesters in Texas that were sent to jail for 30 years. Even though only one of them committed a violent act, they put them all in jail twenty to thirty years. That's what I think they're looking to do when people mobilize and confront them in the streets.