US President Donald Trump on Friday fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, and pushed out five other admirals and generals in an unprecedented shake-up of US military leadership.
Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social that he would nominate former lieutenant general Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking with tradition by pulling someone out of retirement for the first time to become the top military officer.
The president would also replace the head of the US Navy, a position held by Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead a military service, as well as the air force vice chief of staff, the Pentagon said.
Photo: AFP
He is also removing the judge advocates general for the US Army, Navy and Air Force, critical positions that ensure enforcement of military justice.
Trump’s decision sets off a period of upheaval at the Pentagon, which was already bracing for mass firings of civilian staff, a dramatic overhaul of its budget and a shift in military deployments under Trump’s new “America First” foreign policy.
While the Pentagon’s civilian leadership changes from one administration to the next, the uniformed members of the US armed forces are meant to be apolitical, carrying out the policies of Democratic and Republican administrations.
Brown, the second black officer to become the president’s top uniformed military adviser, was serving a four-year term meant to end in September 2027.
A US official said Brown was relieved with immediate effect, before the US Senate confirms his successor.
Democratic lawmakers condemned the decision by Trump, a Republican.
“Firing uniformed leaders as a type of political loyalty test, or for reasons relating to diversity and gender that have nothing to do with performance, erodes the trust and professionalism that our service members require to achieve their missions,” said US Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee.
US Representative Seth Moulton, a Massachusetts Democrat, said the firings were “un-American, unpatriotic, and dangerous for our troops and our national security.”
“This is the definition of politicizing our military,” he said.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had been skeptical of Brown before taking the helm of the Pentagon with a broad agenda that includes eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives in the military.
In his most recent book, Hegseth, a former Fox News personality and military veteran, questioned whether Brown would have gotten the job if he were not black.
“Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to C.Q. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” he wrote in The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.
Brown, a former fighter pilot who has held commands in the Middle East and Asia, recounted experiencing discrimination in the military in an emotional video posted online after the 2020 killing of George Floyd, which sparked nationwide protests for racial justice.
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