U.S. Air Force General Charles Brown testifies during his confirmation hearing on July 11, 2023.
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President Trump has fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., and announced he will nominate a retired three-star general to succeed him as the nation’s top military officer.
Trump announced Brown’s dismissal in a post Friday on TruthSocial, in which he thanked Brown “for his over 40 years of service to our country,” and called him a “fine gentleman and an outstanding leader.” Brown, a former combat pilot, rose to become the first Black man to lead a branch of the military as Air Force chief before he was nominated by former President Joe Biden as chairman of the Joint Chiefs in 2023.
Trump said he would be nominating Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan Caine to succeed Brown.
“General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump wrote, adding that Caine “was instrumental in the complete annihilation of the ISIS caliphate.”
The announcement came amid a broader shake-up underway at the Pentagon, part of a dramatic attempt by the Trump administration to restructure the federal workforce and slash government spending. The Pentagon announced Friday that it plans to fire approximately 5,400 probationary workers beginning next week. The Pentagon has also proposed cutting 8% of its budget in each of the next five years — amounting to some $50 billion each year.
