by WorldTribune Staff, February 23, 2025 Real World News
With little fanfare but at warp speed, the Trump administration is purging woke from the military.
On Friday, President Donald Trump fired Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. CQ Brown, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, and Vice Chief of Staff for the Air Force James Slife.
“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,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said.
Trump said he’s nominating retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next Joint Chiefs chairman. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard, and was most recently the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, according to his military biography.
Caine’s military service includes combat roles in Iraq, special operations postings and positions inside some of the Pentagon’s most classified special access programs.
“General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience,” Trump wrote in a post to Truth Social. “Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military.”
Brown was Joe Biden’s pick to succeed the disgraced Gen. Mark Milley as Joint Chiefs chair.
In his book, “The War on Warriors”, Hegseth slammed Brown, saying he “built his generalship dutifully pursuing the radical positions of left-wing politicians, who in turn rewarded him with promotions.” Hegseth also accused Brown of making “the race card one of his biggest calling cards.”
WorldTribune.com reported in July 2023 that Brown had boasted that he “purposely built” his office with “diversity” as the core priority as opposed to talent, merit, or who would serve the nation best in a particular role.
“Indeed, General Brown admitted on video that he and his team refuse to engage in a colorblind or meritorious approach to hiring and instead judge candidates for positions in the Air Force through the prism of woke intersectionality – discriminating against candidates based on their race, religion, and biological sex,” Citizens for Renewing America wrote in a July 7 analysis.
“General Brown has also despicably suggested that unless his fingers are on the scale, minorities will only rise up through the ranks through luck and that he intends to ‘tweak’ the screening process to conform with the tenets of the radical equity agenda.”
While participating in a virtual discussion hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in November 2020, Brown, then-chief of staff of the Air Force, indicated that “[a]t the higher level of the Air Force, diversity ha[d] moved to the forefront of personnel decisions such as promotions and hiring.” During the same event, the general also admitted to using his post to increase opportunities for so-called “diverse candidates” in the Air Force, saying he “hire[d] for diversity” when building his staff.
Brown’s remarks came months after he posted a video responding to the death of George Floyd, in which he questioned whether non-black airmen viewed racism as a problem. The former Joint Chiefs of Staff chair has also pushed back on Republican criticisms of DEI in the military and signed off on a 2022 Air Force memo directing the Air Force Academy and Air Education and Training Command to “develop a diversity and inclusion outreach plan” aimed at “achieving a force more representative of our Nation.”
Slife and Franchetti have not been shy about using their positions to promote DEI and other leftist ideology in the military.
As The Federalist previously reported, Slife authored a memo following the death of George Floyd, in which he espoused racialist jargon and claimed the matter was “an Air Force issue.”
“We’d be naive to think issues of institutional racism and unconscious bias don’t affect us,” Slife wrote. “We can’t ignore it. We have to face it. And to face it, we have to talk about it.”
Slife went on to contend that it’s important for the military to “listen to other perspectives and accept them as valid, but perhaps incomplete.” He also all but declared he has what leftists often refer to as “white privilege,” writing that he is “limited in [his] perspective” as a “middle-aged white man who grew up in a middle class family in a predominantly white area.”
Franchetti has participated in multiple military-sponsored events celebrating so-called “diversity” and “inclusion.”
In April 2023, the Navy admiral delivered video remarks at the Naval Surface Forces Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Summit, which focused on the issue of “connectedness.” She also spoke at a summer 2024 Navy conference in Norfolk, Virginia, in which she effectively argued that DEI is necessary for military success.
“I think that we’re strongest and most effective as a force when we build strong, inclusive, connected teams,” Franchetti reportedly said.
Franchetti also “[l]iked [a] LinkedIn post about gender bias and inequality,” according to the American Accountability Foundation.
Hegseth further disclosed that the administration is “requesting nominations for the Judge Advocates General for the Army, Navy and Air Force.”
The Wall Street Journal noted: “While some firings at the Defense Department were anticipated, the moves caused shock waves in the armed forces and Congress and raise questions about Trump’s attempts to assert control over the Pentagon leadership after clashing with it repeatedly during his first term.”
Connecticut Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a member of the Armed Services Committee, said in a post on X: “Purging these highly dedicated, decorated military leaders — based on politics, not merit — does immediate immense & lasting damage to the readiness of our armed forces & national defense.”
South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said “President Trump, like every president, deserves to pick military advisers that he knows, trusts and has a relationship with.”
Brown, who has been in the job since late 2023, was replaced before the end of what is normally a four-year term.
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