Members of US President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, potentially to include the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two sources said, in what would be an unprecedented shake-up at the Pentagon.
The planning for the firings is at an early stage after Trump’s Nov 5 election victory and could change as Trump’s administration takes shape, said the sources, who are familiar with the Trump transition and requested anonymity to speak candidly about the plans.
One of the sources questioned the feasibility of a mass firing at the Pentagon.
It was also unclear if Trump himself would endorse the plan, although in the past he has railed extensively against defence leaders who have criticized him. Trump has also spoken during the campaign of firing “woke” generals and those responsible for the troubled 2021 pull-out from Afghanistan.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The second source said the incoming administration would likely focus on US military officers seen as connected to Mark Milley, Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milley was quoted in the book War by Bob Woodward, which was published last month, calling Trump “fascist to the core” and Trump’s allies have targeted him for perceived disloyalty to the former president.
“Every single person that was elevated and appointed by Milley will be gone,” the second source said.
“There’s a very detailed list of everybody that was affiliated with Milley. And they will all be gone.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff include the highest ranking officers in the US military and comprise the heads of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard and Space Force.
The disclosure of plans to fire senior leaders of the US armed forces comes a day after Trump picked as his defence secretary Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran who has signalled a willingness to clean house at the Pentagon.
“The next president of the United States needs to radically overhaul Pentagon senior leadership to make us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. Lots of people need to be fired,” Hegseth said in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.”
It is unclear if Hegseth’s lack of management experience could complicate his Senate confirmation and if a more traditional alternative for the position would carry out such sweeping dismissals.
General Brown to be among the first fired
Hegseth has also taken aim at Milley’s successor, Air Force General CQ Brown, asking whether he would have got the job if he were not Black.
“Was it because of his skin colour? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but 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,” he wrote.
The first source familiar with the transition planning said Brown would be among the many officers to leave.
“The chiefs of the Joint Chiefs and all the vice chiefs will be fired immediately,” the source said, before noting that this was still only early planning.
Some current and former US officials have played down the possibility of such a major shake-up, saying it would be unnecessary and disruptive at a time of global turmoil with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The first source said that it would be difficult bureaucratically to fire and replace a large swath of senior US military officials, suggesting the planning could be bluster and posturing by Trump allies.
But the second source suggested the Trump camp believed the Joint Chiefs of Staff needed to shrink due to perceived bureaucratic over-reach.
Such cuts could be endured in an organization the scale of the US military, the source said.
“These people are not irreplaceable. They are very replaceable. And then the other thing too is there is no shortage of people that will step up,” the source said.
“In World War Two, we were very rapidly appointing people in their 30s or people competent to be generals. And you know what? We won the war.”
