President Donald Trump’s Friday night purge of the Pentagon’s top officer and five other senior officials has thrust the institution into uncharted territory, with a retired general plucked from obscurity to serve as the commander-in-chief’s next senior military adviser and growing alarm among Trump’s critics about the encroachment of political warfare on an organization bound by the Constitution to remain nonpartisan.
The firings of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti had been anticipated for months, after Trump and his supporters frequently accused them and other officials of putting “woke” diversity policies over the military’s primal responsibility to fight and win wars.
Still, their abrupt ousters — and those of the Air Force’s vice chairman, Gen. James Slife, and the top military lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force — angered retired generals, lawmakers and experts on civil-military relations, even as they acknowledged that a president has the right to assemble a team of military leaders of his choosing and in whom he has total confidence.
Retired Gen. Martin E. Dempsey, a Joint Chiefs chairman under President Barack Obama, wrote online that such trust “should be based on their leadership, their integrity, their performance, the quality of their advice, and their willingness to faithfully execute the orders they are given.”
“To relieve a senior officer not for a lack of one of these qualities, but for a real or perceived disagreement in their beliefs, harmfully politicizes the military profession,” Dempsey posted on LinkedIn.
Supporters of the president, including Vice President JD Vance, were quick to point out that other presidents have fired generals. In a social media post of his own, Vance responded to pointed criticism from Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Massachusetts) by observing that President Harry S. Truman ousted Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Obama fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal.
But such firings of generals are rare and typically follow public disagreements over policy or battlefield performance. In MacArthur’s case, Truman fired him in 1951 after the general repeatedly complained about the administration’s strategy during the Korean War. McChrystal was dismissed in 2010 as the top commander in Afghanistan after Rolling Stone magazine published an article in which the general’s staff members disparaged Obama and then-Vice President Joe Biden.
Additional firings are considered possible in coming days. While it was not disclosed Friday with the other dismissals, Hegseth also removed his senior military assistant, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, according to one current and two former U.S. officials familiar with the issue. In that role, Short advised the defense secretary and managed relations with other government agencies. Her dismissal was first reported by NBC News, and John Ullyot, a spokesman for Hegseth, did not respond to questions about it.
Brown, whom Trump selected during his first term to run the Air Force, had kept a lower profile than many other Joint Chiefs chairman, assiduously seeking to avoid partisan politics. He had demonstrated no desire to upstage the president, and had shown himself willing to follow orders and carry out Trump’s priorities, including with border security.
As a four-star officer, Brown spoke infrequently about diversity and sought to emphasize merit and opportunity. In a 2021 Air Force recruiting video, he noted that a pilot’s race and gender are invisible under his or her helmet. “You just know I’m an American airman, kicking your butt,” he said.
Brown came to the top job with more than 3,100 cockpit hours and a record that included serving as deputy head of U.S. Central Command and commander of U.S. air forces in the Middle East during major counterinsurgency campaigns.
Despite his cautious approach, Brown’s future under Trump may have been marked by the general’s occasional remarks about his experiences as a Black man in America and in the military. In a video the military released in 2020 following the police killing on George Floyd, Brown addressed the challenges he faced as a Black officer in a military dominated by White officers. He later said he chose to do so after a conversation with his son.
Critics of the general also cited a 2022 memo, signed by Brown and civilian Air Force leaders appointed by then-President Biden, that laid out “aspirational” goals to ensure the service’s pool reflected the country’s racial and ethnic composition. His detractors called that discriminatory.
Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy, was targeted by Trump’s defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, in a book the former Fox News personality published last year. He called her a “DEI hire,” short for diversity, equity and inclusion, though the admiral’s past experience included serving as the Navy’s No. 2 officer, leading thousands of sailors assigned to the Navy’s 6th Fleet in Europe and commanding an aircraft carrier strike group.
A defense official, speaking like some others on the condition of anonymity to discuss the situation, said that as speculation had grown in recent weeks that Franchetti could be fired, she was a “class act, prioritizing the institution of the Navy above all else.” She urged others to stay focused on their mission and “in her words: ‘Get s— done,’” the official said.
Before their dismissals, both Brown and Franchetti had been scheduled to speak on Saturday at a defense technology conference in California’s Coachella Valley. They were informed of Trump’s decision in separate phone calls from Hegseth just before the administration announced publicly that they were being removed, said defense officials familiar with the issue.
Brown was in Texas at the time, having visited U.S. troops working on the southern border, and returned to Washington early Saturday. Franchetti was in California when she received the news, officials said. Administration officials had not disclosed a short-term plan following their ousters as of Saturday night.
Trump’s move to remove the chairman was immediately complicated by his chosen replacement: retired Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, who departed the military in January after a career that included time as an F-16 fighter pilot in the National Guard, a Special Operations commander in Iraq and a senior military officer at the CIA. Caine did not respond to requests for comment.
Caine does not meet the typical qualifications for the position, which according to law says a president may appoint an officer to the chairmanship “only if” they have previously served as the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the top officer in one of the services or the commander of a major combatant command.
While the president can waive those requirements if he determines that such actions are “necessary in the national interest,” U.S. law says, the unorthodox selection of Caine underscores Trump’s proclivity for smashing norms, said several experts who study interactions between the military and the U.S. government’s civilian leaders. Among the officers whose names had been floated as potential contenders to replace Brown were Navy Adm. Samuel Paparo, the head of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, and Army Gen. Michael “Erik” Kurilla, the head of U.S. Central Command.
“It’s a head-scratcher on purpose,” said Katherine Kuzminski, a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “The fact that they went outside the existing system sends a chilling effect to every currently serving four-star who meets the [legal] requirements to be considered for the chairmanship.”
Kori Schake, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said that while Trump can choose who he wants, his decision to recall an officer to active duty “sends a signal to the senior ranks that you don’t trust them.”
Trump’s comments about Caine already have cast the retired general in a partisan light. On several occasions, the president has regaled audiences with a story about meeting Caine during a visit to Iraq in 2018, as U.S. troops were carrying out a military campaign against the Islamic State group. Caine, Trump claimed, donned a “Make America Great Again” hat and pledged he would kill for the president — statements that would have violated the military’s prohibition on political activity while in uniform.
Others have questioned whether it’s true. John Bolton, Trump’s national security adviser at the time of the president’s meeting with Caine, said in an interview Saturday that he never heard Caine say anything along those lines.
“That is standard Trump — just making things up,” Bolton said.
Caine, who was a one-star general during Trump’s visit to Iraq, and other military officials provided Trump with a presentation about the mission there and in neighboring Syria and sought to convince him of the importance of allowing the operation to continue, Bolton said. They came across “very professional, very dedicated to their mission, determined to succeed and try to do the best they could to brief a president like Donald Trump.”
Bolton said he was with Trump nearly the entire time they were in Iraq and was with Caine and a higher-ranking officer, then-Lt. Gen. Paul LaCamera, during the moments he was not with the president.
“I never saw Caine or LaCamera or anybody else in uniform there with a MAGA hat on,” Bolton said. “I never heard Caine say the things that Trump said, like ‘I will kill for you, sir.’”
Caine has been active on social media for years. A review of his accounts showed nothing overtly partisan, with him instead focusing on leadership lessons and remembering U.S. troops killed in combat.
Others who have served with Caine described him as humble and eager to serve the country. Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Joseph “Gus” Guastella Jr. said in an interview that he was one of Caine’s instructors at the Air Force’s Weapons School in the late 1990s, describing him as intense, serious and “one of the hardest working students I ever saw.”
Later, Guastella commanded U.S. Air Forces Central when Caine was helping to oversee Special Operations missions in Iraq and Syria. Caine’s unusual career trajectory was an asset because, unlike most Air Force fighter pilots, he had spent years in the Special Operations world where he oversaw missions that intertwined ground, air and sea operations. That kind of coordinated power, Guastella said, ultimately helped defeat the ISIS militant group.
“He was one of those guys who said ‘Send me wherever; send me on any deployment. I’ll take any deployment to fight our nations’ wars,’” Guastella said.
As a recently retired officer, Caine had moved into venture capitalism, meaning he will probably have finances to disentangle before becoming chairman that are more typical for a civilian political appointee. Among recent affiliations are work with Shield Capital, a company focused on cybersecurity and artificial intelligence, and Thrive Capital, a group that invests in software companies.
In a recent interview, Caine recounted his military experience and encouraged others to serve.
“While flying airplanes in the military, at least, is epically cool, it’s about something deeper,” Caine said on the Afterburn Podcast. “It’s about serving our country. It’s about being willing to protect and defend this nation and to work alongside incredible professionals who are equally willing to go to the mat in defense of our nation.”
© 2025, GDC. © GDC and www.globaldefensecorp.com. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to www.globaldefensecorp.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
