(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) President Donald Trump ousted several Biden-era military officials from the Pentagon on Saturday, continuing his efforts to clean up the federal government.
Among those ousted was Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who had replaced disgraced Gen. Mark A. Milley as chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2023.
“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,” Trump wrote via Truth Social. Trump called Brown a “fine gentleman and an outstanding leader” and wished him “a great future.”
Trump selected retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown. The president described Caine as an “accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”
Caine was instrumental in the first Trump administration’s “complete annihilation of the ISIS caliphate,” Trump wrote. He said the mission was accomplished in a matter of weeks.
“Many so-called military ‘geniuses’ said it would take years to defeat ISIS. General Caine, on the other hand, said it could be done quickly, and he delivered,” Trump declared.
He also accused disgraced former President Joe Biden of passing over Caine for promotion.
“But not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,” Trump added.
🚨 BREAKING: Trump is naming Lt. Gen. Dan "Razin" Caine as the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of staff – the highest-ranking military officer in the U.S. pic.twitter.com/su1lNc0nQe
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) February 22, 2025
Other Pentagon officials ousted included Lisa Franchetti, a Navy admiral, and James Slife, a general of the Air Force, along with the head attorneys for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
Addressing the press, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth defended the firings: “Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.”
Trump’s decision to remove Brown sent several media and Democratic figures into a frenzy, with some falsely accusing him of racism. These claims appear detached from reality as Trump himself had promoted Brown to Air Force chief of staff in 2020.
Right, okay, anyway, here's Donald Trump after nominating the same man as Chief of Staff of the United States Air Force in 2020. https://t.co/FOECo9kDit pic.twitter.com/j9qxXjBOpn
— Sunny (@sunnyright) February 22, 2025
Brown, however, became a key figure in the Biden regime’s push for so-called DEI—a discriminatory practice that benefits certain racial groups at the expense of others.
Despite the media hysteria over Brown’s removal, Trump’s actions are not unlike those taken by former President Barack Obama and Biden.
In 2009, Obama fired Army Gen. David McKiernan, the head of U.S. forces in Afghanistan—the first time since 1951 that a president had dismissed a wartime commander. His replacement, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, lasted only a year before Obama fired him as well. In 2013, Obama also ousted Gen. James Mattis as head of the U.S. Central Command.
In 2021, Biden proudly threatened to fire 11 officials appointed by Trump to the military service academy advisory board if they did not immediately resign. Even worse, the Biden-led Marine Corps fired an undisclosed number of servicemen who refused to take the COVID-19 vaccine.
“Marines refusing the COVID-19 vaccination, absent an approved administrative or medical exemption, religious accommodation, or pending appeal shall be processed for administrative separation,” the Marine Corps announced at the time.
This was a common thing of Trump’s first term where people would claim something Trump did was one of the most tyrannical things ever but then you’d find out Obama did it twice and no one complained. https://t.co/CwyvYCSa9X
— Frank J. Fleming (@IMAO_) February 22, 2025
