Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are preparing a list of military officials to be fired, potentially including the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two sources said, an unprecedented change at the Pentagon. will be.
Plans for the firing after Donald Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory are in the early stages and could change as Donald Trump’s administration takes shape, said sources who are familiar with the Trump transition and have limited knowledge of the plans. Has requested anonymity to speak.
One of the sources questioned the feasibility of a mass shooting at the Pentagon.
It was also unclear whether Trump himself would support the plan, although in the past he has largely railed against defense leaders who have criticized him. Trump also talked during the campaign about firing “woke” generals and those responsible for the troubled withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The second source said the incoming administration would likely focus on U.S. military officials believed to be linked to Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley.
Milley was quoted in Bob Woodward’s book “War,” published last month, calling Trump “fundamentally fascist” and Trump’s allies targeting him for alleged disloyalty to the former president. It was simple.
“Every single person Millie promoted and hired will be gone,” the second source said.
“There’s a very detailed list of all the people who were associated with Milley. And they’re all gone.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff consists of the highest-ranking officers of the U.S. military and includes the chiefs of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Space Force.
The disclosure of the plan to fire senior leaders of the US armed forces comes a day after Trump chose as his Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran who has signaled a desire to clean house at the Pentagon. Has given.
“The next President of the United States needs to fundamentally change the Pentagon’s senior leadership so we can defend our country and defeat our enemies,” Hegseth said in his 2024 book “The War on Warriors: Behind.” A lot of people need to be fired.” A betrayal of the people who keep us free.”
It is unclear whether Hegseth’s lack of management experience could complicate his Senate confirmation and whether a more traditional choice for the position would elicit such a sweeping dismissal.
General Brown is also among the first to fire
Hegseth also took aim at Milley’s successor, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, asking whether he would have gotten the job if he had not been black.
“Was it because of the color of his skin? Or because of his skills? We’ll never know, but there will always be suspicions – which at first glance seems unfair to CQ. But since he made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, So it doesn’t really matter that much,” he wrote.
The first source familiar with the transition plan said Brown would be one of several executives leaving.
“The heads of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and all deputy chiefs of staff will be removed immediately,” the source said, before noting that this was still only the preliminary plan.
Some current and former US officials have played down the possibility of such a major change, saying it would be unnecessary and disruptive at a time of global turmoil with the ongoing wars in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The first source said it would be bureaucratically difficult to fire and replace large numbers of senior U.S. military officials, suggesting the plan could be cosmetic and cosmetic by Trump’s allies.
But the second source suggested the Trump camp believes the Joint Chiefs of Staff needs to be reduced because of perceived bureaucratic overreach.
The source said such cuts could be tolerated in an organization of the scale of the US military.
“These people are not irreplaceable. They are very replaceable. And then the other thing is that there is no shortage of people who will step up,” the source said.
“In World War II, we were very rapidly appointing people over 30 or capable to become generals. And you know what? We won the war.”
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
