Tangle - The firings at the Pentagon.

I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”

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Today's read: 14 minutes.

Reviewing Trump’s first month.

On Friday, Tangle Executive Editor Isaac Saul returned from paternity leave with a two-part breakdown of Trump’s first month in office: The good, the bad, the unclear, and the abhorrent. You can read a free preview of Part 1 here (the good and bad), and all of Part 2 here (the unclear and abhorrent) if you are a Tangle member.

Quick hits.

1. Federal workers received an email from the Office of Personnel Management requiring them to respond with five tasks they had accomplished in the previous week or risk being fired. However, several agencies — including the FBI, Pentagon, and State Department — instructed their employees not to respond to the email. (The latest)
2. In international news, Germany’s center-right Christian Democratic Union parties are poised to assume power after exit polls showed the coalition winning the largest share of the vote in the country’s elections. The far-right Alternative for Germany party is on track to place second. (The results) Separately, Hamas released six living hostages to Israel, but Israel delayed the release of hundreds of imprisoned Palestinians in objection to Hamas’s public ceremonies during handovers of Israeli captives. Hamas also returned the body of Shiri Bibas after initially sending the wrong body to Israel last week. (The releases)
3. The Department of Homeland Security announced it will end Temporary Protected Status designations for approximately 520,000 Haitians living in the United States, making them eligible for deportation in August. (The decision)
4. Kash Patel was sworn in as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) after a 51-49 Senate confirmation. (The confirmation) Separately, President Trump named commentator and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino as deputy director of the FBI. (The announcement)
5. A federal judge ruled that the Trump administration has not fully complied with a court order pausing the freezing of foreign assistance grants and contracts, directing the administration to allow the disbursement of U.S. foreign assistance. (The ruling) Separately, a different federal judge ruled against a group of labor organizations that sought to pause the Trump administration’s move to fire thousands of federal employees on probationary status or deemed nonessential. (The ruling)

Today's topic.

The firings at the Pentagon. On Friday, President Donald Trump fired the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General Charles “CQ” Brown Jr., as part of a series of dismissals of top Pentagon officers. Shortly after Trump announced Brown’s dismissal, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said that he would replace Admiral Lisa Franchetti, chief of U.S. naval operations, and General James Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, as well as the judge advocates general (the military’s top lawyers) for the Army, Navy, and Air Force. Furthermore, the Pentagon said it plans to fire approximately 5,400 probationary employees and implement a hiring freeze in accordance with President Trump’s executive orders.

Back up: The Senate confirmed Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff following an 83-11 vote in September 2023, making him the nation's highest-ranking military officer and the principal military advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council. The chairman’s four-year term typically spans presidential administrations, though Brown’s future had been in question since President Trump’s re-election. 

Trump thanked Brown for his service in a post announcing his dismissal, calling him “a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader,” but did not offer a rationale for the move. The president also said he would nominate retired Air Force Lieutenant General Dan “Razin” Caine to replace Brown, claiming that Caine had been “passed over for promotion” by President Joe Biden. Caine served as an F-16 fighter pilot in the military, then as associate director for military affairs for the Central Intelligence Agency and director of special programs and the Department of Defense Special Access Program Central Office at the Pentagon. If confirmed by the Senate, Caine would become the first chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to come out of retirement to fill the position.

Franchetti and Slife were also nominated for their roles by former President Biden, and Franchetti was the first woman to serve as the highest-ranking officer of the Navy. In a statement, Hegseth thanked them for their service but also did not specify a reason for their dismissal. 

While the firings surprised some in the military community, they had seemingly been in the works from the beginning of Trump’s presidential transition. In mid-November, Reuters reported that Trump’s team was drafting a list of top military officers to dismiss early in his term, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump had previously promised to fire “woke” members of the military, and he signed an executive order on January 27 directing the Defense Department to end all diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives and programs. Separately, Hegseth said in November that Brown should be fired due to his purported support of DEI initiatives in the armed forces. 

Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, criticized the firings. “This appears to be part of a broader, premeditated campaign by President Trump and Secretary Hegseth to purge talented officers for politically charged reasons,” Reed said. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) defended the moves, saying, “President Trump, like every president, deserves to pick military advisers that he knows, trusts and has a relationship with.”

Today, we’ll share reactions to the firings from the right and left. Then, my take.

What the right is saying.

• The right is mostly supportive of the firings, though many say Brown’s dismissal was the least defensible of the moves.
• Some frame the move as a shift in the military’s focus away from progressive initiatives. 
• Others say Trump’s pick to replace the chief of naval operations will be a key test.

The Wall Street Journal editorial board wrote “Trump sweeps out Biden’s officers.”

“As Commander in Chief, President Trump has the power to fire and promote military advisers as he chooses. The question that occurs after his Friday evening purge of Pentagon leaders is whether he wants personal loyalty or honest military counsel,” the board said. “Such dismissals usually come with a specific reason or performance failure. Messrs. Trump and Hegseth offered no reason for Friday’s purge, except for a general assertion that they will make choices based only on merit and war-fighting ability.”

“In that case firing CQ Brown as chairman of the joint chiefs is unfortunate… He understands the challenge from China and has thought about how to defeat it, arguing for more modern equipment and embracing new tech,” the board wrote. “Firing Adm. Lisa Franchetti as navy chief is a closer call. The Biden Administration did her no favors by making her elevation more about group identity than her command experience… The firing of the senior judge advocates general (military lawyers or JAGs) is the least concerning, despite the media panic that this will lead to an era of lawlessness. The JAG corps has had embarrassing prosecutorial mistakes in recent years. In rules of engagement, they now can lean too far toward risk elimination over mission success.”

In The Federalist, Shawn Fleetwood said the firings marked “a major step toward restoring lethality and efficiency to the Pentagon.”

“President Donald Trump fired his Joint Chiefs of Staff chair and other DEI-pushing military officials on Friday night, marking a major step toward restoring lethality and efficiency to the Pentagon,” Fleetwood wrote. “Trump’s move is welcome news for Americans and service members concerned about the spread of neo-Marxist ideology throughout the military. Shortly after legacy media broke the news about his impending nomination, The Federalist first reported about Brown’s promotion of DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), which military specialists and veterans have argued hampers the force’s overall readiness.”

“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,’” Fleetwood said. “Much like Brown, Slife and Franchetti have not been shy about using their positions to promote DEI and other leftist ideology in the military.”

In Fox News, Rebecca Grant explored “how the Pentagon purge can succeed.”

“Even with DOGE on the move, the firings of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General C. Q. Brown and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti stunned Washington. In part, that’s because no one got fired over national security issues during the Biden years, not even when they deserved it. Not for the botched Afghanistan withdrawal, not for bad estimates about Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, not for the open southern border, not even for the lapse in nuclear command and control when Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was in the hospital,” Grant wrote. “The fact is, four-star officers know they can be let go any moment. It’s a job risk. 

“To be clear, Brown departs with great credit for the way he rallied American airpower to defend Israel against Iran’s two vicious drone and missile attacks last year… However, Friday’s firings at the Pentagon can succeed if they lead to better preparedness against China. My real concern here is the Navy. This is a critical moment, and the Navy is in dire need of strong leadership,” Grant said. “With the [Chief of Naval Operations] slot open, President Trump needs a carrier admiral to step in. It has been 25 years since a naval aviator led as Chief of Naval Operations. During that time period, China has built hundreds of new navy ships, including three aircraft carriers, and now poses a serious threat to the Pacific.”

What the left is saying.

• The left criticizes the firings, arguing Trump is continuing to hollow out key checks on his power.
• Some say the message sent by the dismissals will make it harder for officers to give honest counsel.
• Others suggest Trump is putting loyalty over merit.

In The Atlantic, Tom Nichols called the firings a “Friday-night massacre at the Pentagon.”

“President Donald Trump tonight began a purge of the senior ranks of the United States armed forces in an apparent effort to intimidate the military and create an officer corps personally loyal to him,” Nichols wrote. Trump is “the president who nominated Brown to be Air Force chief of staff in 2020. (Biden appointed Brown as chairman in 2023.) Trump gave no reason for the firing and Hegseth issued a boilerplate statement thanking Brown.”

“Normally, the chairman serves a four-year term; the position, like that of FBI director, is meant to bridge across administrations rather than change with each incoming president… Obviously, Trump has no use for such conventions and believes that every senior official in the United States should be a personal appointee of the president—so long as that president is him,” Nichols said. “Now that Trump has captured the intelligence services, the Justice Department, and the FBI, the military is the last piece he needs to establish the foundations for authoritarian control of the U.S. government.”

In The Washington Post, Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI) wrote “firing military officers for perceived disloyalty endangers the nation.”

“The implications for our national security cannot be overstated. A clear message is being sent to military leaders: Failure to demonstrate personal and political loyalty to Trump could result in retribution, even after decades of honorable service,” Reed said. “In particular, firing the military’s most senior legal advisers is an unprecedented and explicit move to install officers who will yield to the president’s interpretation of the law, with the expectation they will be little more than yes men on the most consequential questions of military law.”

“The firings are sure to create a dangerous ripple up and down the ranks. Leaders might hesitate to refuse illegal orders, speak their minds about best practices or call out abuses of power,” Reed wrote. “A commitment to provide the ‘best military advice’ exists at every level in the ranks. Commanders expect their troops to give them the facts, straight and true, because lives are on the line. But firing officers as a political litmus test poisons this military ethos. It sends an immediate signal to service members that the best military advice might have career-ending consequences.”

The Economist criticized Trump’s dismissal of “America’s top military brass.”

“The sackings have little to do with kindling the ‘warrior ethos’, which the defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, vows to do. General Brown has clocked more than 3,000 flight hours, including 130 in combat. Admiral Franchetti had commanded not one but two aircraft-carrier strike groups,” the author said. “Instead they are casualties of the culture wars that the Trump administration is waging against ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ (DEI). General Brown is the most prominent black military officer; Admirals Fagan and Franchetti were the first women in their jobs.”

“The military establishment is also under assault from the chainsaw of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). The Pentagon hopes to cut 5-8% of the civilian workforce, starting with some 5,400 probationary workers… Mr Hegseth has also asked service chiefs to present immediate plans to slice 8% from their budgets to make room for new priorities,” the author wrote. “What Mr Trump demands, though, is personal loyalty. And his administration is sweeping aside norms across the federal government with surprising speed. Indeed, the sacking of the three judge advocates general raises worrying questions about how far the Pentagon is prepared to test conventional legal restraints.”

My take.

Reminder: "My take" is a section where I give myself space to share my own personal opinion. If you have feedback, criticism or compliments, don't unsubscribe. Write in by replying to this email, or leave a comment.

• A lot of criticism vastly overstates these firings, which are constitutional and well within Trump’s right.
• However, Brown — and others — were amply qualified, and Trump didn’t give a good reason for their dismissal.
• The administration seems to be acting counter to its stated goals.

In my review of the first month of Trump’s presidency, one of the things that upset a lot of people about my take (including one of my editors!) was a line criticizing overreactions to Trump’s “unimportant, meaningless nonsense (as many on the left are keen to do).”

Some Tangle readers took exception to this line, or assigned unintended meaning to it, like that the left overreacts more than the right. My intended point was that when people on the left blow things Trump says out of proportion, it does three things: 1) It distracts from his more meaningful, and potentially more dangerous, actions. 2) It creates a boy-who-cried-wolf dynamic that makes urgent warnings appear unimportant. 3) It often gives Trump exactly what he wants, since he is very good at provoking his political opponents and keeping them focused on less important things.

Around the same time I was reading the criticism of that line, the story about Trump firing some military leaders came out. Then Rep. Seth Moulton (D-MA) said this:

“Dictators or wannabe kings fire generals who don’t agree with their politics. This isn’t a banana republic.”

This isn’t exactly the kind of overreaction I had in mind, but it’s pretty close. As Vice President JD Vance and even Trump-critical conservatives like John Podhoretz have already pointed out, presidents have the absolute right to fire and promote military leaders of their choosing. What’s more, past presidents — including Barack Obama and Harry Truman — made similar firings. Arguably, President Biden probably should have fired some staff after the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, but he didn’t. 

To put this simply: Trump cleaning house at the military is not the stuff of a banana republic. It’s not a constitutional crisis, and it doesn’t make him a dictator. Trump himself didn’t even justify his decision with his top-shelf rhetorical fire — he thanked Brown for his service, calling him a fine gentleman and outstanding leader, and wished him well. It all felt rather… tame. As I wrote on Friday, Trump is serving up plenty of other reasons for us to be concerned. 

However, the fact that these firings are constitutionally sound doesn’t mean I have to like them. For starters, the defense by Vance and Podhoretz is incomplete. Truman and Obama fired top generals, not the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and they both had cause for their firings — the Trump administration did not, or at least no stated one. Indeed, Trump nominated Brown to be Air Force chief of staff in 2020 and Biden then promoted him to chairman in 2023.  In his book, Pete Hegseth suggested that Brown may have only gotten the job because he is black, a sentiment echoed by writers like Shawn Fleetwood (under “What the right is saying”) who insisted Brown’s dismissal is part of some broader triumph over “DEI” in the military. 

I’ve got to say: A lot of people in Trump’s orbit seem to be using “DEI” as a codeword for “black” these days. Legitimate criticisms of DEI and DEI programs — many of which I share — are abundant. One can reasonably advance the opinion that the programs worsen race problems, or elevate less qualified people to important positions, or have tended to exclude or harm Asian Americans; but I don’t think any of those apply here. 

Again, Brown was appointed by Trump, and promoted by Biden. Yes, he’s black. Yes, he has opinions about what being a black person in America is like, and how it’s impacted his life and career. It is also true that, on paper, he has all the experience one could want for a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In a sick twist of irony, of course, Hegseth — the underqualified secretary of state who has trumpeted a meritocracy — has appointed a replacement for Brown who literally needs a waiver from the president to take the job because he doesn’t meet the minimum legal qualifications. 

As for Franchetti and Slife, I honestly wasn’t very familiar with their careers before Friday, so I won’t pretend to be an expert on how impactful replacing them will be. Ironically, the military firings that give me the most pause are the ones getting the least media attention: the judge advocates general dismissals, which seem to be part of a push by Hegseth to make the military less accountable for its actions. 

Within the context of a focus on staffing reduction at the Department of Defense, all these firings seem incoherent, too. As I’ve written in Tangle, if you want to reduce government expenditures and waste, you must include the military. So when I saw the news accompanying these firings that the Pentagon is planning to let go of 5,400 probationary employees and implement a hiring freeze, I thought, “Well, at least they are consistent.” The bad news, though, is that Trump and Republicans are simultaneously pushing a budget that will jack up defense spending while also increasing the debt and deficit by trillions of dollars over the next decade. 

I have a hard time understanding Trump’s plan: What goal or objective is Trump hoping to achieve that those fired weren’t helping with? When fit into a broader context of cuts, it seems like the administration’s firings aren’t helping them towards their stated objectives, whether it’s releasing functional personnel to try to balance a budget or hiring amply qualified military leaders to try to improve the military. So while I think fears of a constitutional crisis are overblown, I also have no idea what, exactly, Trump's long-term plan is. 

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Your questions, answered.

Today, I wanted to use this section to respond to reader feedback that did not have a direct question attached, but caught my eye anyway. A reader named Denise left this comment on Part 1 of my review of Trump’s first month, where it was voted as the top comment:

Generally I agree with much of what you wrote but am surprised and disappointed that there was not even a mention anywhere of his Executive Orders targeting the freedoms of Transgender Americans, which are devoid of even a basic understanding of human developmental biology, attempt to take away the responsibility for health care of children from doctors and parents, and even accuse Transgender soldiers in our military of being immoral and dishonorable. He has gone so far as to attempt to remove the TQ from the general terminology of LGBTQ. I realize this is a small percentage of the population, but that is precisely WHY they should not be targeted.

Isaac Saul, Executive Editor: I am always of two minds about this kind of feedback. Since Trump got inaugurated, I've noticed the most liked comments in Tangle’s comments section are often arguments that strike me as bad faith or strawman points to what we have written, which (as an observer while on paternity leave) was pretty frustrating. 

On the other hand, it's a totally reasonable thing to say, "You're looking here, you should be looking there." In fact, it's the kind of feedback I typically find most useful. Comments like this are helpful in that they give us a sense of the kinds of stories our readers might think are more important, or help us uncover stories not getting enough coverage.

So let me respond to the feedback directly. First, we already dedicated a whole issue to trans women in sports and, broadly speaking, “my take” isn’t that far off from what Will Kaback wrote: I don't think the federal government should be dictating rules for every sport at the top level. They seem to know this at least in some capacity, as even Trump’s order requires representatives of the governing bodies of major sports to standardize their eligibility requirements within 60 days. This should be the case everywhere — sporting governing bodies, local leagues, and so on should be able to make the decisions that fit their sports, competition, and desires of their athletes.

Like you, I was pretty offended by Trump’s order on trans soldiers. He does not offer a compelling explanation for why trans soldiers should be banned from the military, and the order comes at a time when the military is already struggling to recruit. Further, his actions raise a lot of questions about the state’s role in family medical decisions. I share many conservatives’ worries about removing parents from their children’s healthcare decisions. But like many liberals, I also think if an adolescent, with their parents and the doctor, think a course of action is the best thing for their health, they should have the freedom to make that choice. 

Second, just to contextualize the absence of this issue from my review, I think it’s worth pointing out a few other things that also weren’t included. I didn't write a sentence about Trump fulfilling his promise to take executive action that was supportive of IVF, or the cuts to the Department of Education, or the confirmation of Kash Patel, or even the early stages of the Republicans' massive spending fight. These are each huge stories in their own right, and their absence is less evidence of apathy than it is evidence of how difficult it is to respond to everything from the last four or five weeks. Even when we publish a two-part, 10,000-word edition, we simply can’t get it all.

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Under the radar.

On Friday, the cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase said the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had agreed to withdraw its lawsuit against the company without any financial penalty, potentially ending one of the most significant legal challenges to the crypto industry. The case began in 2023, when the SEC alleged that the digital currencies sold on Coinbase’s platform were unregistered securities that posed a financial risk to consumers, one of several legal actions the SEC took against crypto companies under former Chair Gary Gensler. The SEC’s commissioners still must approve the lawsuit’s dismissal. The New York Times has the story.

Numbers.

• 1949. The year the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff position was created. 
• 21. The number of chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in United States history.
• 0. The number of chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who had been fired before Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. 
• 1915. The year the chief of naval operations position was created. 
• 33. The number of chiefs of naval operations in U.S. history.
• 2007. Before Admiral Lisa Franchetti’s dismissal, the most recent year that a chief of naval operations did not complete their full four-year term (Admiral Michael Mullen). 
• 60%. The percentage of Americans who say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the United States military, according to a June 2023 Gallup poll.
• 76%. The percentage of Americans who said they had a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the U.S. military in 2013.

The extras.

• One year ago today we had just covered the Trump fraud ruling.
• The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was a tweet from Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).
• Nothing to do with politics: An ocean liner is set to become the world’s largest artificial reef.
• Something to do with politics: Shorts Producer Aidan Gorman broke down the National Parks cuts on Instagram. 
• Thursday’s survey: 2,378 readers answered our survey on where to cut the federal budget with 64% ranking defense as their first choice. We used ranked-choice voting to tally the results, and you can see the whole visualization of every round here.

Have a nice day.

Amanda Barrows has been a park ranger in San Francisco since 2021, tasked with the specific challenge of removing homeless individuals living in the parks. Unlike many park rangers, Barrows decided against using citations or force, and instead focused on compassion, patience and trust, building a relationship with her “clients” and helping them find more stability and housing. Barrows estimates that since 2021 she has helped close to 60 people accept services to help them both leave the park and better their lives. The San Francisco Standard has the story.

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