Hegseth news: At least 20 generals, admirals and civilian defense leaders have left the Defense Department since Pete Hegseth became defense secretary at the start of the second Trump administration. Dan Driscoll handed in his resignation this week after raising concerns about generals leading Army transformation efforts.
The turnover has reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Army, the Navy and the Air Force. Charles Q. Brown was fired in February 2025 after 16 months in a four-year term, Lisa Franchetti was relieved the same day, and James Slife was pushed out in the same statement.
Charles Q. Brown and Lisa Franchetti
Donald Trump fired Brown in a February 2025 social media post that thanked him for his service. Hegseth told News that Brown was “an honorable man, not the right man for the moment.” Trump then replaced him with Air Force Gen. Dan Caine.
Brown had been only the second Black general to serve as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Franchetti was the first woman to be part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the second person to be promoted to four-star admiral.
Dan Driscoll resignation
Driscoll’s resignation puts the Army side of the turnover in sharper focus. A source familiar with his resignation said he had expressed concern that many of the generals leading efforts to transform the Army for the next generation of warfare had been pushed out by Hegseth.
That sits alongside the broader pattern described in the source: Black and female officers have been disproportionately removed from promotion lists, and there are currently no active four-star women generals or admirals in the military. A statutory cap also limits the number of active-duty general officers, with CRS noting there can be 36 four-star generals or admirals.
Hegseth and DEI
Before he was nominated, Hegseth said on a podcast that “any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the DEI woke s*** has got to go.” The personnel changes since then show that message has already reached the top ranks of the Army, Navy and Air Force, and Driscoll’s resignation adds a civilian Army leader to the list.
The next unanswered piece is which other generals and civilian leaders have been removed beyond the named cases. For service members and civilian employees tracking the shake-up, the immediate fact is that the leadership churn has not stayed at one post or one branch.
