President Donald Trump on Friday terminated Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman CQ Brown Jr., the country’s highest-ranking military officer, from his position.
Brown’s dismissal comes amid a wave of administration shake-ups as part of the president’s crusade to reshape the federal government.
“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.
Brown has held the post since October 2023, after he was nominated by then-President Joe Biden.
Brown, a fighter pilot, was the second Black person to serve as Joint Chiefs chairman after Army Gen. Colin Powell held the role from 1989 to 1993.
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth called Brown on Friday evening to inform him he was being fired, according to a defense official. The call, which came shortly before Trump’s Truth Social post, was “cordial,” the official said. Brown was on a trip to the border Friday and then traveling on for another domestic stop when he got the call.
Trump said he plans to nominate Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown, calling him “an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”
Caine served in Operation Inherent Resolve, an effort to defeat ISIS in Iraq, as one of the commanders of the special ops mission in 2018 and 2019.
Hegseth praised Caine, saying he “embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment.”
“I look forward to working with him,” Hegseth said in a statement. “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.”
Hegseth said he was also firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations, and Gen. James Slife, Air Force vice chief of staff, and was requesting nominations for those roles. He also asked for nominations for the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy and Air Force.
