President Donald Trump on Friday terminated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman CQ Brown Jr., the country's highest-ranking military officer, from his position.
Brown’s dismissal comes amid a wave of administration shake-ups, including efforts to cut up to 10% of the federal workforce, as part of the president’s crusade to reshape the federal government.
“I want to thank General Charles 'CQ' Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
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Brown has held the post since October 2023, after he was nominated by then-President Joe Biden.
Brown, a fighter pilot, was the second Black person to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman after Army Gen. Colin Powell held the role from 1989 to 1993.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called Brown on Friday evening to inform him he was being fired, according to a defense official. The call, which came shortly before Trump's Truth Social post, was “cordial,” the official said. Brown was on a trip to the border Friday and then traveling on for another domestic stop when he got the call.
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During a November interview on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” Hegseth said that if confirmed he would immediately fire Brown, arguing the general had pushed a “woke” agenda.
Trump said Friday that he plans to nominate Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown, calling him “an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a 'warfighter' with significant interagency and special operations experience.”
Caine has served as associate director for military affairs at the CIA. He also served in Operation Inherent Resolve, an effort to defeat ISIS in Iraq, as one of the commanders of the special ops mission in 2018 and 2019.
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Hegseth praised Caine, saying he "embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment."
"I look forward to working with him,” Hegseth said in a statement. “Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.”
Hegseth said he was also firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, and Gen. James Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff, and was requesting nominations for those roles. He also asked for nominations for the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, thanked Brown "for his decades of honorable service to our nation,” in a statement Friday.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said in a post on X that he had spoken with Trump on Friday about his plans, "and I told him that every president deserves their team when it comes to national security."
"I’m confident General Caine will be the right person at the right time to take over as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, providing sound military advice to the president," Graham said, adding that he would "gladly help lead the effort" to ensure Caine's confirmation.
Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the dismissals part of an effort by Trump and Hegseth to "purge talented officer for politically charged reasons," and warned against “corrosive attempts to remake the military into a partisan force."
“America has the strongest, most capable military in the world. But 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 servicemembers require to achieve their missions,” Reed said in a post on X.
