Washington: President Donald Trump announced late Friday that US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff CQ Brown was stepping down, and he would nominate Air Force Lieutenant General Dan Caine as a replacement.
“I want to thank General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his social media platform, without indicating if Brown had resigned or was fired.
The Chairman is the highest-ranking military officer in the country, advising both the President and the Secretary of Defence on national security.
The ouster of Brown, only the second Black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon. His 16 months in the job had been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East.
Brown has held the post since October 2023, after he was nominated by then-President Joe Biden.
Brown was visiting troops at the US southern border Friday.
Rumours had been swirling this week that Trump would seek to remove Brown, whose term was set to expire in 2027.
In November, before he was confirmed, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth said on the Shawn Ryan Show Podcast that there were many problems with the current state of the military, including diversity initiatives, which the Trump administration should “course correct”.
“First of all, you got to fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said in describing the steps he believed Trump should take.
Hegseth this week announced the Pentagon will cut its budget and next week will let go of 5,400 probationary employees.
Trump said in his post he had also directed Hegseth “to solicit nominations for five additional high-level positions, which will be announced soon”.
Trump said he is nominating Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin Caine to be the next chairman. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard and had most recently served as the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, according to his official military biography.
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. However, it does not include key assignments that were identified in law as prerequisites for the job, with an exemption for the President to waive them if necessary in times of national interest.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a statement praising both Caine and Brown, announced the firings of two additional senior officers: Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife.
Brown had spent Friday at the US-Mexico border, assessing the military’s rapid buildup of forces to meet Trump’s executive order on countering illegal immigration.
Trump acted despite support for Brown among key members of Congress and a seemingly friendly meeting with him in mid-December when the two were seated next to each other for a time at the Army-Navy football game. Brown had been meeting regularly with Hegseth, who took over the top Pentagon job just four weeks ago.
But Brown’s future was called into question during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s confirmation hearing for Hegseth last month. Asked if he would fire Brown, Hegseth responded bluntly, “Every single senior officer will be reviewed based on meritocracy, standards, lethality, and commitment to lawful orders they will be given.”
Hegseth has embraced Trump’s effort to end programs that promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in the ranks and fire those who reflect those values.
Hegseth had previously taken aim at Brown.
“First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” he said flatly in a podcast in November. And in one of his books, he questioned whether Brown got the job because he was 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,” Hegseth wrote.
As he walked into the Pentagon on his first day as defense chief on January 27, however, Hegseth was asked directly if he planned to fire Brown.
“I’m standing with him right now,” said Hegseth, patting Brown on the back as they headed into the building.
“Look forward to working with him.”
In his second term, Trump has asserted his executive authority in a much stronger way and removed most carryover officials from President Joe Biden’s term, even though in typical transitions, many of those positions are meant to carry over independently from one administration to the next.
Just prior to his Senate confirmation vote in June 2020 to become chief of the Air Force, Brown gained some attention when he spoke out on the police killing of George Floyd the month before. While he knew it was risky, he said, discussions with his wife and sons about the killing convinced him he needed to say something.
