Over the last four years, Joe Biden has lectured Americans over and over about the peaceful transfer of power - but now that President-elect Donald Trump is returning to the White House, will he get a smooth transition?

Despite winning a resounding mandate to govern, there are already signs that Trump will face illegal obstruction from within the government, as Trump's sweeping reform plans put the Deep State on defense.

In fact, this insolence is not just coming from anonymous bureaucrats, but high-ranking Biden officials like Defense Secretary Loyd Austin, who urged the military to obey only "lawful orders" from Trump in a pointed statement.

Trump's reform plans

During Trump's first term, he often faced insubordination from his own generals, who were lauded in the media for obstructing the president's plans.

In the most serious case, General Mark Milley allegedly gave commands to ignore orders from Trump, the highest civil authority in the land at the time, following the January 6th, 2021, riot. 

As he prepares to return to the White House, Trump has nominated a loyalist, Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, to lead the Defense Department and purge the military bureaucracy of "woke" generals.

Trump has also pledged to use the military for mass deportations of illegal aliens, and he has floated using the troops to maintain law and order against what he calls "the enemy within," sparking significant backlash and alarm among his critics.

Presidents can use the military to quell unrest under the Insurrection Act, most recently used during the Los Angeles riots of 1992. Still, Trump's critics, including top generals who served under him during his first term, have painted him as an aspiring dictator or "fascist."

Woke military lashes out

Already, Trump's plans for the military have set off panic within the Pentagon, where generals are holding "informal discussions" on how to obstruct the president-elect, according to CNN.

"Troops are compelled by law to disobey unlawful orders," one anonymous official said.

Senator Tom Cotton (R-AK), a Trump ally who famously called on Trump to "send in the troops" to quell the George Floyd riots in 2020, criticized the new plans to defy Trump's constitutional authority in a letter to Austin, whom Cotton bashed for making "baseless" suggestions that Trump will give unlawful commands.

"It appears that partisans and obstructionists inside the Department of Defense are laying groundwork to defy or circumvent President Trump’s plans for both military and civil-service reform," Cotton wrote in a letter Austin.

"These actions undermine civilian control of the military and our constitutional structure of government."

Cotton's letter

In his letter to Austin, Cotton warned that these "annoying" actions to undermine the president-elect will fail, but they show why reform is needed.

"I have to observe that these actions and reports only prove the need for reform and fundamental change at the Department of Defense. And, of course, while inappropriate and annoying, these tactics are also useless because no action by the outgoing administration can limit the incoming president’s constitutional authority as commander-in-chief," the Arkansas Republican wrote.