At least 20 military leaders ousted under Hegseth's Pentagon tenure

Since Pete Hegseth took over as defense secretary in the second Trump administration, at least twenty senior military officers and civilian Pentagon leaders have been removed from their posts. Some departed quietly; others were fired outright. The list includes the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Navy's top officer, the Army's commanding general, and the heads of critical military commands. The departures have reshaped the Pentagon's leadership in ways that extend far beyond routine turnover.

Hegseth arrived at the Defense Department with a clear ideological mission. Before his nomination, he had declared on a podcast that any general or admiral involved in what he called "DEI woke s***" would have to go. Once in office, he made good on that promise. Female and Black officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists, and the administration has pushed out top female and Black leaders. There are now no active four-star women generals or admirals in the military. Many officers who failed to secure promotions have left the service entirely.

The first major casualty was Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—the highest-ranking military officer in the country. Brown, a former fighter pilot with over 3,100 flight hours, was only the second Black general ever to serve in that role. Trump announced his departure in a social media post in February 2025, just sixteen months into Brown's four-year term. Hegseth told Fox News that while Brown was "an honorable man," he was "not the right man for the moment." Trump replaced him with Air Force General Dan Caine. On the same day Brown was fired, Hegseth relieved Admiral Lisa Franchetti of her duties as chief of naval operations. Franchetti was the first woman to hold that position and only the second woman ever promoted to four-star admiral. She had commanded the 6th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Korea, and had led a naval destroyer and an aircraft carrier strike group. Hegseth offered no explanation for her removal.

The purge continued through the spring. Air Force General James Slife, the second-highest-ranking officer in the Air Force, was pushed out. General Randy George, the Army's top uniformed officer and a career infantry officer who had served in the Gulf War and Iraq and Afghanistan, was forced to take immediate retirement in April. Air Force General David Allvin, who was only halfway through his two-year term as the Air Force's top general, also departed early without explanation. Hegseth's office cleared out the military's top lawyers as well—the judge advocates general of the Army and Air Force were terminated. In his 2024 book "The War on Warriors," Hegseth had derided some military lawyers as "Jagoffs" and accused them of tying the hands of warfighters. Once in office, he told Fox News he wanted lawyers who weren't "roadblocks" and referred to the existing JAG leadership as a "small group of insulated officers who perpetuate the status quo."

Other removals reflected different concerns. Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command, was forced out a little over a year after his promotion. General Christopher Donahue, who had been the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan in 2021 and was widely respected across both parties, was pushed into early retirement. As head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, Donahue had been developing a new Army drone battalion based on lessons from Ukraine's intense drone warfare. The Army is now phasing out that unit. Air Force General Timothy Haugh, the NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, was fired in April 2025 without official explanation. A senior intelligence official and a source familiar with the circumstances told CBS News that right-wing personality Laura Loomer, a longtime Trump ally, played a role in Haugh's ouster. Loomer had publicly and privately called for the removal of officials she viewed as disloyal to the president.

Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, was ousted in August 2025 in what caught colleagues off guard. His removal came after an initial DIA assessment concluded that military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June had only set back the nuclear program by a matter of months. Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, the U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee, was relieved in what the Pentagon called a "loss of confidence in her ability to lead." Years earlier, she had been singled out by some social media accounts as a potential "woke" officer partly because of a 2015 presentation on Women's Equality Day. Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, who had served over thirty years in the Navy and was head of the Navy Reserve, was relieved of her duties in August 2025 without public explanation. She is now running for federal office as the Democratic nominee in South Carolina's 1st Congressional District. Rear Admiral Milton Sands, head of Naval Special Warfare Command and a thirty-year Navy veteran, was also relieved in August without stated reason.

On the civilian side, Navy Secretary John Phelan left in April after Trump said he was a "wonderful guy" but had trouble getting along with others, particularly over shipbuilding efforts. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned after months of rising tensions with Hegseth. Before leaving, Driscoll raised concerns with the Trump administration about the fact that Hegseth had ousted some of the generals who were central to the Army's modernization and transformation efforts. Hegseth's own staff experienced significant turnover as well. Chief of Staff Joe Kasper was reassigned after Hegseth inadvertently shared information about airstrikes in a Signal chat that included a journalist. Deputy Defense Secretary's Chief of Staff Dan Caldwell and Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick were placed on administrative leave in April during a leak investigation. Senior adviser Colin Carroll was also put on administrative leave and then fired. The three questioned the validity of the probe in a post on X, saying they had not been told what they were investigated for or whether an actual investigation existed. Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, who had overseen the effort to remove diversity, equity and inclusion language from the military, left in April. He later wrote an opinion piece describing his "month from hell" inside the department, though Hegseth suggested he had been fired.

The scale and speed of the removals have raised questions about the Pentagon's direction and readiness. Hegseth has vowed sweeping changes to the military's Chaplain Corps, which he said was "infected by political correctness and secular humanism." He has called for a "hard reset" on the military's legal department and wants military lawyers to focus narrowly on warfighting aspects while handing off other concerns to civilian lawyers. The pattern suggests a deliberate effort to reshape the military's leadership and priorities, though the full strategic implications remain unclear.