The Vermont National Guard usually takes orders from the state. But at the end of 2025, President Trump deployed the Vermont guard to the Caribbean — and Gov. Scott said he had no control over the president’s orders.

It gave this question from a listener newfound relevance:

“Who controls the deployment of the Vermont National Guard if orders from the federal government and the state are in conflict?”

You can find the web version of this story here.

For more about the Vermont guard, check out this 2010 VPR series, which covered some of the 1,500 Vermonters who were deployed to Afghanistan.

This episode was reported and produced by Sabine Poux and Josh Crane. Editing and additional production from Burgess Brown. Our executive producer is Angela Evancie. Theme music by Ty Gibbons; other music by Blue Dot Sessions.

Special thanks to Jill Lepore, Mikaela Lefrak, Jon Ehrens, Alicia Freese, April McCullum, Peter Hirschfeld, Peter Teachout, Steve Zind and Zoe McDonald.

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Brave Little State is a production of Vermont Public and a proud member of the NPR Network.