The ouster of Brown, only the second B﷽lack general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon.
President Donald Trump abruptly fired Air 🐓Force Gen CQ Brown Jr as chaiꦓrman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, sidelining a history-making fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign led by his defence secretary to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.
The ouster of Brown, only the second Black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock wave🧜s through꧙ the Pentagon. His 16 months in the job had been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East.
“I want to thank General Charles CQ' Brown for his over 40 year꧙s 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,” T𝕴rump posted on social media.
Brown's public support of Black Lives Matter after the police killing of George Floyd had made him fodder for the administration's wars against “wokeism” in the military. His ouster is the latest upheaval at the Pentagon, which plans to cut 5,400 civilian probationary workers starting next week and identify USD 50 billion in programs that could be cut next year to redirect those savings to fund Trump's prio⛄rities.
Trump said he's nominating retired Air Force Lt Geꦯn Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next chairman. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and♌ in the National Guard, and was most recently the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, according to his military biography.
Caine's military service includes combat roles in Iraq, special operations postings and posi𒁏tions inside some of the Pentagon's mos🌊t classified special access programs.
However, he has not had key assignments identified in law as prerequisites for the job, including serving as either the vice chairman, a combatant commander or a service chief. That requirement could be waived if the “president determines such ac𓄧tion is necessary in the national interest.”
More Pentagon firings
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement praising both Caine and Brown, announced the firings of two additional senior officers: Chief of Naval Operaꦜtions Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief o💯f Staff of the Air Force Gen. Jim Slife.
Franchetti becomes the second top female military officer to be fired b⛦y the Trump administration. Trump fired Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan just a day after he was sworn in.
A surface warfare officer, Franchetti has commanded at all levels, heading US 6th Fleet and US Naval Forces Korea. She was the second woman ever to be promoted to four-star admiral, and she did multiple deployments, including as co𓆏mmander of a naval destroyer and two stints as aircraft carrier strike group commander.
Slife led Air Force Special Operations Command prior to becoming the service's vice chief꧟ of staff and had deployed to the Middle East and Afghanistan.
Trump has asserted his executive authority in a much stronger way in his second term, removing most officials𝕴 from the Biden administration even though many of those positions are meant to carry over from one administration to the next.
The chairman role was established in 1949 as an adviser to the president and secretary of defence, as a way to filter all of the views of the service chiefs and more readily provide that information to the White House without the president having to reach out to each individual military branch, according to an Atlantic Council𝔉 briefing written by retired Maj. Gen. Arnold Punaro. The role has no actual command a♓uthority.
The firing follows days of speculation after a list of officers, including Brown, to be fired was circulated on Capitol Hill — but notably was not sent via🐷 any formal notification to either of the Republican chairmen of the House or Senate armed services committees.
Sen. Roger Wicker, GOP chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, didn't mention Caine's name in a stat🍸ement Friday.
“I thank Chairman Brown for his decades of honourable service to our nation,” Wicker said. “I am confident Secretary Hegseth and President Trump will select a qual♚ified and capable successor for the critical position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staf🌟f.”
Congressi﷽onal Democratic leaders called out the firings as a dir♈ect attempt to politicize the military.
“A professional, apolitical military that is subordinate to the civilian government and supportive of the Constitution rather than a political party is essential to the survival of our democracy," Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement late Friday. “For the sake of our troops and the well-being of every American, elected leaders — especially Senate Republicans — must defend that enduring principle against corrosive attempts to remake the military into a partisan 🍸force.”
Brown Risked Discussing Race
Brown's future was called into question during the confirmation hearing for Hegs🌳et🅰h last month. Asked if he would fire Brown, Hegseth responded, “Every single senior officer will be reviewed based on meritocracy, standards, lethality and commitment to lawful orders they will be given.”
Hegseth ha💯d previously taken aim at Brown. “First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” he said flatly in a podcast in November. And in one of his books, he questioned whether Brown got the job because he was Black.
“Was it because of his skin colour? Or his skill? We'll never know, bu♔t always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one 🎉of his biggest calling cards, it doesn't really much matter,” Hegseth wrote.
As he walked into the Pentagon on his first day as defence chief on Jan. 27, Hegseth was asked directly i𓆏f he planned to fire Brown.
“I'm standing with him right now,” said Hegseth, pat🎉ting Brown on the back. “Look forward to working with him.”
Brown, who spent Friday visiting troops at the US-Mexi🌳co border, drew attention to himself for speaking out about the death of George Floyd in 2020. While he knew it was risky, he said, discussions with his wife and sons about the killing convinced him he needed to say something.
As protests roiled the nation, Brown posted a video message to the Air Force titled, “Here's What I'm Thinking About.” He described the pressures that came with being one of the few Black men in his unit. He recalled pushing himself “to perform error-free” as a pilot and officer his whole life, but still faci🦩ng bias. He said he'd been questioned about his credentials, even when he wore the same flight suit and wings as every other pilot.
Brown's path to the chaꦯirmanship was troubled — he was among the more than 260 senior military officers whose nominations were stalled for months by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. But when the Senate vote was finally taken in September 2023, Brown easily was confirmed 🎐by a vote of 89-8.
It had been 30 years since Colin Powell became the first Black chairman, serving from 1989 to 1993. But while African Americans made up 17.2% of the 1.3 million active-duty service members, only 9% of officers were Black, according to a 2021 Defense Department re✨port.
Brown's service as chairman made history in that this was the first time that both𒊎 the defense se▨cretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Joint Chiefs chairman were Black.