The dismissal of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff came as part of a broader shakeup throughout the military’s senior ranks.
President Donald Trump’s firing of the country’s most senior military officer on Friday night rattled the foundations of the armed forces. It also intensified an already-furious game of “who’s next” among senior lawmakers and Washington officials, who have been trading information about the commander-in-chief’s likely targets.
Trump fired Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., known as CQ, who was only the second African American to serve as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The president then tapped a relatively unknown officer to replace him–retired three-star Air Force general Dan “Raizin” Caine, who reportedly impressed the president with his swagger and bravado when they met in Iraq in 2018.
Brown’s dismissal, coupled with Caine’s improbable elevation, added to a sense of bewilderment that has prevailed across the national security establishment in recent days, as the administration purges the upper echelons of career officers and civil servants. Trump also appears poised to remove several other top military leaders–focusing onBlack and women officers–and replace them with his hand-picked successors. And at the FBI, the CIA, the Department of Homeland Security and other intelligence agencies, senior officials, as well as personnel who had only been on the job a few years, were bracing to be fired, multiple officials have told us.
Many of the personnel actions seemed aligned with the Trump administration’s pledge to rid the ranks of “woke” officials whom the president thinks were promoted not because of their credentials, but due to their race or gender.
