US President Donald Trump has fired Force General CQ Brown as chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff as part of a wider shake-up of top military leadership.
“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 posted on his Truth Social platform on Saturday.
The US president did not provide a reason for dismissing Brown with immediate effect.
The president announced that he would nominate retired former Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to succeed Brown, breaking tradition by pulling someone out of retirement to become the top military officer.
Mr. 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.
Hegseth said in his statement that Caine “embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment. I look forward to working with him.”
Hegseth said Brown “served with distinction in a career spanning four decades of honorable service,” and praised him as a “thoughtful adviser.”
Caine was sworn in as associate director for Military Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency in November 2021, according to his biography on the Air Force’s website, and his most recent post was as director of special programs for the Defense Department’s Special Access Program Central Office at the Pentagon. As a command pilot, he has logged more than 2,800 hours in an F-16, including more than 150 combat hours.
But Brown, a former fighter pilot who has held commands in the Middle East and Asia and the second Black officer to take the position, had come under fire previously after his public support for Black Lives Matter in the wake of the police killing of Black man George Floyd, making him fodder for the administration’s fight against “woke culture” and the push for diversity.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had previously suggested that Brown had got the position because he was Black.
Along with Brown’s firing, Hegseth announced that Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Lisa Franchetti and Vice Chief of Staff of the Air Force General Jim Slife were also being let go.
Franchetti, who has commanded at all naval levels, becomes the second female officer to be fired by the Trump administration.
Democratic Senator Jack Reed on the Senate Armed Services Committee condemned the firing of Brown as a “type of political loyalty test”.
“Or for reasons relating to diversity and gender that have nothing to do with performance, erodes the trust and professionalism that our service members require to achieve their missions,” Reed said.
Since coming into office, Trump has pushed through a series of mass firings within the upper echelons of government. Starting next week, the Pentagon plans to cut 5,400 civilian probationary workers.
