Donald Trump had talked about firing senior military commanders on the campaign trail as far back as last summer. After the election, his transition team reportedly drew up a list of senior officers to be fired. Trump’s secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, had told a podcast just days before he was named to his position, “First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”
Still, the Friday night massacre that befell senior US military leaders, came as a shock. Those fired include Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Charles Q. Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Air Force Vice Chief of Staff James Slife, and the judge advocates general for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Hegseth’s top military assistant, Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, was relieved on Saturday.
