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.”
Brown’s ouster appeared increasingly likely following the confirmation of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Prior to his nomination, Hegseth had called for Brown to be removed, alleging he supported a “woke” agenda that undermined military readiness.
“First of all, you’ve got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs,” Hegseth said during an appearance in November on the Shawn Ryan Show.
Before becoming Joint Chiefs chairman, Brown pushed for the military to streamline its bureaucracy and also increase recruitment by attracting Americans from more diverse backgrounds.
In 2020 — as he was awaiting confirmation to serve as Air Force chief of staff — he gained national attention for a passionate video message about race that he shared as the nation was grappling with the police killing of George Floyd.
In an interview with NPR later that year, he explained the decision to post the video, saying, “It was my own personal experiences but thinking about our two sons and their experiences, [is] actually what got me to do it.”
