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At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian defense leaders have been fired or have departed their jobs since Pete Hegseth became defense secretary at the beginning of the second Trump administration.
Some of the military’s most decorated leaders have either been fired by Hegseth and President Trump or have retired with little explanation, including the Army, Navy and Air Force’s highest-ranking officers and the leaders of key units. The Army and Navy’s top civilian leaders have also either been forced out or resigned.
Before becoming defense secretary, Hegseth had criticized military officers, accusing them of being too focused on diversity initiatives and insufficiently supportive of frontline service members. Before he was nominated, he said on a podcast that “any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the DEI woke s*** has got to go.”
The Trump administration has pushed out top female and Black officers, and Black and female officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists, a source familiar with the lists told CBS News. There are currently no active four-star women generals or admirals in the military. Many of those who failed to secure promotions have left the military.
Others were ousted by Hegseth over suspected leaking to the media. And in some cases, Hegseth has clashed with top officials like Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who handed in his resignation this week.
A source familiar with Driscoll’s resignation said he had expressed concerns that many of the generals who had been leading efforts to transform the Army for the next generation of warfare had been pushed out by Hegseth.
Here are the top military and civilian leaders who have left the Defense Department during Hegseth’s tenure as defense secretary:
Military Leaders
Air Force General Charles Q. Brown, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Mr. Trump abruptly fired Brown in a February 2025 social media post thanking him for his service, 16 months into Brown’s four-year term as the top-ranking military officer.
Brown is a former fighter pilot with more than 3,100 flight hours, and was only the second Black general to serve as chairman in the history of the military. All Hegseth told Fox News about the ouster was that the president should be able to pick his adviser. He said Brown is “an honorable man, not the right man for the moment.”
Mr. Trump replaced him as chairman with Air Force Gen. Dan Caine.
Navy Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations
Franchetti was the first woman to be part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the second to be promoted to four-star admiral. Biden nominated her to be chief of naval operations in 2023, after she headed the 6th Fleet and U.S. Naval Forces Korea, and was commander of a naval destroyer and an aircraft carrier strike group.
Hegseth relieved Franchetti of her duties without explanation on the same day that Brown was fired.
General James Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff
After Mr. Trump announced Brown’s departure in February of last year, Hegseth put out a statement pushing out Franchetti and Slife. In his statement, Hegseth said both officers had “distinguished careers” and thanked them for their service.
Slife, who was the second-highest-ranking officer in the Air Force, previously commanded the Air Force Special Operations Command and also was vice commander of Special Operations Command. He spent most of his career in special operations aviation assignments, with more than 3,100 flight hours, including 280 in combat.
General Randy George, Army chief of staff
Hegseth asked George, the Army’s top uniformed officer, to take immediate retirement in April. A career infantry officer, George served in the first Gulf War and the more recent Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, and was senior military assistant to Biden-era Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
General David Allvin, Air Force chief of staff
Allvin retired last November, just over halfway into his two-year term as the Air Force’s top general. He did not give a reason for his early departure. An Air Force spokesperson said Hegseth’s office was not involved in the decision.
A command pilot, Allvin was nominated to the role by Biden, after serving as vice chief of staff and as commanding general of NATO Air Training Command – Afghanistan, among other roles.
Army Lieutenant General Joseph B. Berger III, judge advocate general of the Army
Air Force Lieutenant General Charles Plummer, judge advocate general of the Air Force
Soon after Hegseth took office, he cleared out the top ranks of the military’s lawyers, terminating the judge advocates general of the Army and Air Force. The Navy JAG had already retired. In a February 2025 statement, he issued a call for nominations for the posts and also fired Berger and Plummer, though he did not identify them by name.
At the time, he told Fox News that he wanted lawyers who aren’t “roadblocks,” and he referred to the JAG leadership as a “small group of insulated officers who perpetuate the status quo.”
“The status quo hasn’t worked very well at the Pentagon,” he added. “It’s time for fresh blood.”
Hegseth’s criticism of the JAG corps predates his tenure as defense secretary. He derided some military lawyers as “Jagoffs” in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” and accused them of “tying the hands of warfighters.”
Earlier this year, Hegseth called for a “hard reset” on the military’s legal department, calling on military lawyers to sharpen their focus on “aspects of warfighting,” including military justice, intelligence law, cyberspace and the law of armed conflict.
He also said military lawyers should hand off concerns outside military channels, like those involving civilian responsibilities and military installation environmental concerns, to civilian lawyers.
Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of U.S. Southern Command
The U.S. military’s top officer in Central and South America retired late last year, a little over a year after he was promoted to the job. Hegseth praised Holsey, saying his tenure as commander of SOUTHCOM “reflects a legacy of operational excellence and strategic vision.”
During his time as commander, Holsey oversaw the start of the strike campaign against alleged drug-carrying boats in the Caribbean and East Pacific.
General Christopher Donahue, head of U.S. Army Europe and Africa
Donahue, who may be best known as the last U.S. service member to leave Afghanistan during the U.S. withdrawal in 2021, was forced by Hegseth to retire early. As the head of the U.S. Army in Europe, Donahue had been working on a new Army drone battalion that was tasked with taking lessons from the intense drone warfare in Ukraine. The Army is phasing out that unit, an Army official told CBS News last month.
Donahue was also one of the first senior officers on the ground in Ukraine after Russia invaded. A West Point graduate and Delta Force commander, Donahue was widely respected across the military and by Democratic and Republican political leaders alike.
Air Force General Timothy Haugh, NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command
Haugh was fired in April 2025. The Pentagon thanked him for his service but did not give a reason for his termination.
Right-wing personality Laura Loomer played a role in Haugh’s ouster, a senior intelligence official and a source familiar with the circumstances told CBS News. A longtime Trump ally, Loomer has frequently advocated — both publicly and privately — for the ouster of officials whom she views as disloyal to the president.
The longtime Air Force intelligence officer denied Loomer’s claims of disloyalty, telling “60 Minutes” last fall: “Every day I woke up committed to our national security and to meeting the expectations of the president.”
Lieutenant General Jeffrey Kruse, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency
Kruse was ousted in August 2025, catching staff at the agency off guard. His ouster came after news outlets reported details from an initial DIA assessment that said military strikes on Iranian nuclear sites in June during Operation Midnight Hammer had only set back the nuclear program by a matter of months.
Air Force Lieutenant General Jennifer Short, senior military assistant to the secretary of defense
Short served as the senior military assistant to the defense secretary, first for Lloyd Austin and then for Hegseth, until February 2025. The assistant position serves as the primary military point of contact between the defense secretary and the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the combatant commands.
Navy Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, U.S. military representative to the NATO Military Committee
In April 2025, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell confirmed that Chatfield had been relieved “due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.”
Chatfield had been singled out by some X accounts in the years prior as a potential “woke” officer in part because of a presentation she gave on Women’s Equality Day back in 2015 with a slide that said, “investing in gender equality and women’s empowerment can unlock human potential on a transformational scale.”
Vice Admiral Nancy Lacore, Navy Reserve chief
Lacore was the head of the Navy Reserve in August 2025 when she was relieved of her duties. She served over 30 years in the Navy, with assignments including vice commander of the Navy’s Sixth Fleet based in Italy, which is responsible for more than 20 million square nautical miles of ocean, according to the Navy. No reason was publicly given for her termination.
Lacore is 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
USNI reported that Sands and Lacore were both relieved in August 2025 without an official reason given. Sands had served in the Navy for 30 years and served surface warfare officer assignments before becoming a SEAL. He was the head of Naval Special Warfare Command for about a year.
General David Hodne, Army Transformation and Training Command
Major General William Green, head of the Army Chaplain Corps
Hodne and Green were removed from their roles in April, at around the same time as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George’s ouster.
No reason was given for the ousters, but Hegseth has vowed to make sweeping changes to the military’s Chaplain Corps, which he said was “infected by political correctness and secular humanism.”
Civilian Leaders
John Phelan, Navy secretary
Phelan left his role in April. The president called him a “wonderful guy,” but said he had trouble getting along with others. Mr. Trump said that some of the conflicts revolved around the administration’s shipbuilding efforts.
The president and Hegseth agreed on the need for new Navy leadership, and Hegseth informed Phelan of the decision to remove him before it was made public, CBS News previously reported. He was replaced as acting Navy secretary by Hung Cao.
Dan Driscoll, Army secretary
Driscoll resigned on Aug. 31, after months of rising tensions with Hegseth.
Driscoll sought to modernize the Army and increase its expertise in unmanned weapons. But on his way out, Driscoll raised concerns with the Trump administration around the Army’s transformation efforts and the fact that Hegseth had ousted some of the generals who were key figures in the plan, a source familiar with the matter told CBS News.
Joe Kasper, Hegseth’s chief of staff
Kasper was Hegseth’s chief of staff early in the Trump administration and was moved to a different role in April 2025. That came amid staffing changes after Hegseth shared information about airstrikes in a Signal chat that inadvertently included a journalist.
The Pentagon told CBS News he would work on “special projects” as a special government employee, which means he can only work for the government 130 days each year. “He’s staying with us, going to be in a slightly different role, but he’s not going anywhere, certainly not fired,” Hegseth told Fox News. “You make changes over time, and we’re grateful for everything Joe’s done.”
Colin Carroll, senior Hegseth adviser
Dan Caldwell, deputy defense secretary’s chief of staff
Darin Selnick, Hegseth’s deputy chief of staff
Two of Hegseth’s top aides, Caldwell and Selnick, were fired in April 2025, as Kasper conducted a leak investigation. Carroll was also put on administrative leave and soon fired.
The three questioned the validity of the probe in a post on X, saying that “we still have not been told what exactly we were investigated for, if there is still an active investigation, or if there was even a real investigation of ‘leaks’ to begin with.”
The focus of the probe was not clear, but at the time, the defense secretary’s office was grappling with a series of leaks that frustrated Hegseth.
John Ullyot, spokesperson
Pentagon spokesman John Ullyot, who oversaw much of the effort to remove diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives and language from the military, left his role in April 2025. Soon after his departure from the Pentagon, he wrote an opinion piece for Politico Magazine describing what he said was his “month from hell” inside the department.
Ullyot said he stepped down from his job voluntarily, but Hegseth has suggested he was fired, telling “Fox and Friends” at the time: “Anybody that knows John knows why we let him go.” Last month, Pentagon deputy press secretary Joel Valdez said Ullyot was “terrible at his job and now lashes out at the Secretary any chance he gets.”
