WASHINGTON — When the Senate unanimously confirmed Gen. CQ Brown Jr. as Air Force chief of staff in 2020, President Donald Trump hailed a “historic day for America!” on social media and said he was ”Excited to work even more closely with Gen. Brown, who is a Patriot and Great Leader!”
Trump’s Feb. 21 social media post firing Brown, who had since risen to the military’s top uniformed officer, was comparatively reserved. The Republican president dismissed Brown, the second African American to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, along with five other Pentagon officials in a rare move that some critics fear pushes politics into an institution vaunted for its nonpartisanship and adherence to the Constitution.
On Capitol Hill, the move drew little criticism from many Republican senators who had once hailed Brown’s service to the nation.
“My understanding is the president does have the ability to decide who he wants to be as chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Gen. Brown, I believe, has done an excellent job,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D.
“I would’ve been more than happy if the president had left him right in there. But the president has the ability and the authority to make up his own mind as to who he wants,” said Rounds, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., compared the firings to the way President Barack Obama, a Democrat, shook up military leadership as he pursued military gains in Afghanistan. He said he was still trying to understand whether Trump’s dismissals were really without precedent.
“I don’t know if I should be concerned or not, if it’s really far afield from what you normally see in transitions,” Tillis said.
Fired alongside Brown were five other top officials: Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy; Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of the Air Force; and the top judge advocate generals, who advise the military on how to legally conduct their actions, for the Army, the Navy and the Air Force.
But it was Brown’s dismissal that attracted the most attention, given that Trump campaigned heavily on removing “woke” generals from the military. Brown rose to the job after a career as one of the Air Force’s top aviators, but he drew conservative ire for speaking about his experiences as a Black man in the military after the murder of George Floyd, a Black man who was killed when a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on Floyd’s neck for about 9 1/2 minutes while Floyd was handcuffed.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., lambasted Brown’s firing. She said the message from the White House to rank-and-file troops is clear: “Your expertise and service is not what’s important. What’s important is your political loyalty to Donald Trump.”
Brown was only the second African American to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman, after the late Army Gen. Colin Powell. He was confirmed for the job in 2023 with significant bipartisan support, but few Republicans came to his defense after his firing.
Many Republicans emphasized that Trump has the right, as the commander-in-chief, to dismiss Brown.
“I think the president is entitled to have his team, including on the Joint Chiefs,” said Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo. “And I thought the president handled that well, thanked him for service and a distinguished career, but it’s probably time for change.”
Hawley did not specify why Brown had to be removed before his four-year tenure as chairman expired but said he expected Trump would provide some explanation.
Trump’s firings did draw some pushback, if muted. A bipartisan group of House members sent a letter to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth calling for “clear, transparent and apolitical” criteria for the removal of top military officials.
“An apolitical military is an essential component of our democracy and our national security,” wrote a group of six lawmakers that included Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., alongside moderate Democrats.
And Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, said Brown and the other officers fired had been doing a “good job.”
“It’s the president’s prerogative and I recognize that,” Collins said. “But I do not think based on the merits that the decision to fire them was warranted.”
Others cheered Trump’s dismissals. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., a former Navy SEAL, slammed the Pentagon’s leadership under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, saying “the folks from that era just need to go away.”
“We need a clean slate at the DOD,” Van Orden said, referring to the Department of Defense.
Hegseth, who was confirmed by the Senate as defense secretary in a dramatic tie-breaking vote despite questions about his qualifications to lead the Pentagon and allegations of heavy drinking and aggressive behavior toward women, has defended Trump’s firings.
Trump said his nominee to replace Brown will be retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine, whom Trump first met during a trip to Iraq. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard, notably flying above the nation’s capital in the hours after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
While Caine’s military service includes combat roles in Iraq, special operations postings and positions inside some of the Pentagon’s most classified special access programs, he lacks key assignments that are required by law to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman. Trump can waive those requirements — but no waiver was required when Brown was confirmed under Biden, as he had fulfilled all the criteria.
Caine’s lack of command roles is a gap but also gives him more independence than his predecessors, said retired Lt. Gen. Marc Sasseville, who is a friend and flew F-16s on Sept. 11 with Caine.
“He never asked for the job. Never politicked for it,” Sasseville said. “This is not how he is going to define himself.”
But Democratic senators say the firings are an ominous sign, given that Trump has long made clear his desire to involve the military in his domestic policy goals, including his crackdown on immigration.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a veteran and member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, called the firings a “travesty” that “will have a ripple effect throughout the military in recruiting and retaining really qualified, able men and women, because it sends a message that political kowtowing to the president is more important than ability and skill.”
Blumenthal said Republican colleagues had expressed “deep misgivings” to him but would not air those concerns publicly.
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Associated Press writer Tara Copp contributed to this report.
