Top NATO officer Trump's latest ‘DEI' firing: Meet 5 ousted top brass
President Trump has fired a top U.S. military officer at NATO, Navy Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield, a termination that caused swift rebuke from Democrats in Congress.
Chatfield was the country's top representative to NATO's military committee. Her firing marks the latest casualty of Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's purge of military officials seen as part of past diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts.
That campaign against 'woke' culture in the military has led to the ouster of three barrier-breaking women in top military roles, as well as the removal of Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. C.Q. Brown and top lawyers in multiple branches of the armed services.
Hegseth, an ex-Minnesota National Guard officer who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, has long railed against DEI efforts in books and on Fox News, where he was a longtime weekend host.
During an appearance on 'Shawn Ryan Show' podcast shortly before his nomination to lead the Pentagon, Hegseth said any 'general, admiral, whatever — that was involved in any of the DEI woke s‑‑‑ has got to go.'
Here are five top brass who have been ousted since Trump's return to the Oval Office:
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Chatfield, who is a combat veteran, helicopter pilot and the first female president of the Naval War College, was removed from her post 'due to a loss of confidence in her ability to lead.'
'The Defense Department is grateful for her many years of military service,' Parnell said in a statement on Tuesday.
Senate Armed Services Committee ranking member Jack Reed (D-R.I) characterized Chatfield's firing as 'disgraceful' and 'unjustified.'
'Admiral Chatfield's record of selfless service is unblemished by President Trump's behavior,' Reed said in a statement.
Chatfield has been in the conservatives' crosshairs for some time, with critics calling her 'woke' for her remarks when beginning as the president of the Naval War College in 2019.
'I want to see members of this team offer each other respect for differences, for diversity, for the dialogue from which ideas and collaboration emerge,' she said at the time.
Chatfield was also one of 20 military leaders featured in the letter that the American Accountability Foundation (AAF), a conservative watchdog group, sent to Hegseth in December. The organization argued that those mentioned in the 10-page letter were overly focused on DEI and other similar left-wing efforts and were, therefore, hampering the military's readiness.
'Purging the woke from the military is imperative, but just revering woke policies would not be enough to bring our military to peak preparedness,' AAF's President Thomas Jones wrote in the letter. 'Those who were responsible for these policies being instituted in the first place must be dismissed.'
Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa M. Franchetti, the first woman on the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was fired in late February.
Her dismissal was announced in an email from Hegseth. It came hours after Trump announced in a post on Truth Social that he would be terminating Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr. and naming Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan 'Razin' Caine to be the U.S.'s next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
'I am also requesting nominations for the positions of Chief of Naval Operations and Air Force Vice Chief of Staff,' Hegseth said at the time, thanking Franchetti for her 'distinguished career' and ' dedication to our country.'
Franchetti is a 1985 graduate of Northwestern University, where she got her commission through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps Program, according to her biography.
She became a service warfare officer in 1989. At the time, women in those roles mostly served on noncombat vessels, a mandate that was terminated in 1993.
Franchetti was also mentioned in AAF's letter. The conservative group pointed to her 2023 video address at the Naval Surface Forces Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Summit, where she talked about the importance of 'connectedness' as a military value.
Hegseth fired his top female military staffer, Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short, in late February.
Short acted as the main military point of contact for Hegseth and is the Joint Chiefs of Staff's representative, interacting with 'Joint Staff, combatant commands, and with agencies outside of the Defense Department for policy matters and related subjects,' according to her biography.
She graduated with a bachelor's degree in marketing from Arizona State University in 1993. Short completed Officer Training School at Maxwell Air Force Base, Ala., in 1995. She accumulated over 1,800 flight hours.
Brown, a four-star general and former fighter pilot, was only the second African American to hold the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Trump announced his termination in a post on Truth Social in February, when he also named his successor, Air Force Lt. Gen. Caine.
'I want to thank General Charles 'CQ' Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,' Trump wrote at the time. 'He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family.'
Hegseth said on the 'Shawn Ryan Show' that Brown should be ousted from his post along with other generals 'involved' in DEI initiatives.
Brown said in January that he planned to remain in his position despite Trump threatening to fire him once he got back to the White House.
The chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff normally serves a four-year term. Brown began his tenure on Oct. 1, 2023.
Brown drew scrutiny from the right over a video in 2020 where he addressed the protests around the country that were sparked by the death of George Floyd.
'I'm thinking about how full I am with emotion, not just for George Floyd, but for the many African Americans that have suffered the same fate as George Floyd,' he said. 'I'm thinking about our two sons and how we had to prepare them to live in two worlds.'
'I'm thinking about my Air Force career where I was often the only African American in my squadron or, as a senior officer, the only African American in the room,' he added.
U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Adm. Linda Fagan, who was the first female uniformed leader of a U.S. military branch, was fired by the administration less than 24 hours into Trump's second term. The Coast Guard is under the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) umbrella.
DHS later said that Fagan, who was the first top military officer to be ousted during Trump's second term, got axed 'because of her leadership deficiencies, operational failures, and inability to advance the strategic objectives of the U.S. Coast Guard.'
The senior DHS official said that Fagan, who assumed her duties in June 2021, did not effectively deploy Coast Guard resources in border efforts, 'especially in interdicting fentanyl and other illicit substances.'
The official also criticized Fagan for 'botching high-ticket purchases' such as ice breakers in the Arctic, and mishandling the fallout of 'coverup' around sexual misconduct in the Coast Guard.
Upon assuming the role, Fagan inherited major recruiting challenges, which she helped reverse, meeting goals for new recruits in 2024.
Democrats said Fagan should be rewarded for how she dealt with the branch's historic lack of transparency around cases of sexual assault and misconduct.
'The Commandant who stood up to clean up this mess instead of burying it should be rewarded, not dismissed,' Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) said on social media.
'Firing a Commandant at will by a new President also sets a bad precedent. The complexity of the Coast Guard's diverse missions require continuity to protect lives and American interests.'
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Black America Web
20 minutes ago
- Black America Web
Elon Musk Claims Trump's Name Is On The Epstein List, Taco Trump Threatens To End Phony Stark's Government Contracts
Source: The Washington Post / Getty / Elon Musk / Donald Trump It should come as no surprise that the bromance between these two ego maniacs would have come to a fiery end. We knew this day would come, but no one had Musk and Trump beefing with each other so soon on their bingo cards. The alleged ketamine abuser couldn't keep his disdain for Trump's 'one big beautiful bill,' calling it a 'disgusting abomination.' 'I'm sorry, but I just can't stand it anymore,' Musk began. 'This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it.' Trump was uncharacteristically quiet following Musk's initial comments about his legislative centerpiece of his second presidency, the 'one big beautiful bill.' That all changed when Trump finally 'clapped back' at Musk while taking questions during his meeting with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Trump said he was 'very surprised' and 'disappointed' by his former financier's comments about his stupid bill, claiming the Tesla chief saw the bill and understood its inner workings better than anybody, while suggesting that Musk was mad because of the removal of subsidies and mandates for electric vehicles. Elon Musk Had Time For Donald Trump Musk responded in real time via his 'former platform,' X, formerly Twitter, with a flurry of posts on X accusing Trump of 'ingratitude' and 'Without me, Trump would have lost the election,' while refuting the orange menace's claims. 'Keep the EV/solar incentive cuts in the bill, even though no oil & gas subsidies are touched (very unfair!!), but ditch the MOUNTAIN of DISGUSTING PORK in the bill,' Musk wrote. Oh, and he wasn't done. Musk then hit the president with a low blow, writing, 'Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!' Donald Trump Claps Back Trump finally fired back on his platform, Truth Social, by threatening to cut Musk's government contracts. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it.' Felon 47 wrote. Musk replied by threatening to decommission SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft, which could be detrimental to the International Space Station and NASA, as it is described as 'the only spacecraft currently flying that is capable of returning significant amounts of cargo to Earth' and can seat seven passengers. Musk also agreed with a post stating that Trump should be impeached and replaced by JD Vance. Oh, this is getting spicy. While all of this was going on, CNN reports that Tesla stocks took a hit and Musk's net worth shrank. Per CNN : Tesla shares plummeted 15% this afternoon as Elon Musk's battle with President Donald Trump intensified. Trump threatened in a social media post to target Musk's business empire. 'The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts,' Trump wrote on Truth Social. The Tesla selloff has wiped off more than $150 billion off the market value of Telsa, which started the day worth nearly $1.1 trillion. It has also erased a chunk off the net worth of Musk, the world's richest person. Social media has pulled up all the seats, grabbed some popcorn and are currently watching Musk go at with Trump and his supporters, you can see those reactions in the gallery below. Elon Musk Claims Trump's Name Is On The Epstein List, Taco Trump Threatens To End Phony Stark's Government Contracts was originally published on Black America Web Featured Video CLOSE
CNN
21 minutes ago
- CNN
How a Supreme Court decision backing the NRA is thwarting Trump's retribution campaign
As Harvard University, elite law firms and perceived political enemies of President Donald Trump fight back against his efforts to use government power to punish them, they're winning thanks in part to the National Rifle Association. Last May, the Supreme Court unanimously sided with the gun rights group in a First Amendment case concerning a New York official's alleged efforts to pressure insurance companies in the state to sever ties with the group following the deadly 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. A government official, liberal Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for the nine, 'cannot … use the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression.' A year later, the court's decision in National Rifle Association of America v. Vullo has been cited repeatedly by federal judges in rulings striking down a series of executive orders that targeted law firms. Lawyers representing Harvard, faculty at Columbia University and others are also leaning on the decision in cases challenging Trump's attacks on them. 'Going into court with a decision that is freshly minted, that clearly reflects the unanimous views of the currently sitting Supreme Court justices, is a very powerful tool,' said Eugene Volokh, a conservative First Amendment expert who represented the NRA in the 2024 case. For free speech advocates, the application of the NRA decision in cases pushing back against Trump's retribution campaign is a welcome sign that lower courts are applying key First Amendment principles equally, particularly in politically fraught disputes. In the NRA case, the group claimed that Maria Vullo, the former superintendent of the New York State Department of Financial Services, had threatened enforcement actions against the insurance firms if they failed to comply with her demands to help with the campaign against gun groups. The NRA's claims centered around a meeting Vullo had with an insurance market in 2018 in which the group says she offered to not prosecute other violations as long as the company helped with her campaign. 'The great hope of a principled application of the First Amendment is that it protects everybody,' said Alex Abdo, the litigation director of the Knight First Amendment Institute. 'Some people have criticized free speech advocates as being naive for hoping that'll be the case, but hopefully that's what we're seeing now,' he added. 'We're seeing courts apply that principle where the politics are very different than the NRA case.' The impact of Vullo can be seen most clearly in the cases challenging Trump's attempts to use executive power to exact revenge on law firms that have employed his perceived political enemies or represented clients who have challenged his initiatives. A central pillar of Trump's retribution crusade has been to pressure firms to bend to his political will, including through issuing executive orders targeting four major law firms: Perkins Coie, Jenner & Block, WilmerHale and Susman Godfrey. Among other things, the orders denied the firms' attorneys access to federal buildings, retaliated against their clients with government contracts and suspended security clearances for lawyers at the firms. (Other firms were hit with similar executive orders but they haven't taken Trump to court over them.) The organizations individually sued the administration over the orders and the three judges overseeing the Perkins Coie, WilmerHale and Jenner & Block suits have all issued rulings permanently blocking enforcement of the edicts. (The Susman case is still pending.) Across more than 200-pages of writing, the judges – all sitting at the federal trial-level court in Washington, DC – cited Vullo 30 times to conclude that the orders were unconstitutional because they sought to punish the firms over their legal work. The judges all lifted Sotomayor's line about using 'the power of the State to punish or suppress disfavored expression,' while also seizing on other language in her opinion to buttress their own decisions. Two of them – US district judges Beryl Howell, an appointee of former President Barack Obama, and Richard Leon, who was named to the bench by former President George W. Bush – incorporated Sotomayor's statement that government discrimination based on a speaker's viewpoint 'is uniquely harmful to a free and democratic society.' The third judge, John Bates, said Vullo and an earlier Supreme Court case dealing with impermissible government coercion 'govern – and defeat' the administration's arguments in defense of a section of the Jenner & Block order that sought to end all contractual relationships that might have allowed taxpayer dollars to flow to the firm. 'Executive Order 14246 does precisely what the Supreme Court said just last year is forbidden: it engages in 'coercion against a third party to achieve the suppression of disfavored speech,'' wrote Bates, who was also appointed by Bush, in his May 23 ruling. For its part, the Justice Department has tried to draw a distinction between what the executive orders called for and the conduct rejected by the high court in Vullo. They told the three judges in written arguments that the orders at issue did not carry the 'force of the powers exhibited in Vullo' by the New York official. Will Creeley, the legal director at the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said the rulings underscore how 'Vullo has proved its utility almost immediately.' 'It is extremely useful to remind judges and government actors alike that just last year, the court warned against the kind of shakedowns and turns of the screw that we're now seeing from the administration,' he said. Justice Department lawyers have not yet appealed any of the three rulings issued last month. CNN has reached out to the department for comment. In separate cases brought in the DC courthouse and elsewhere, Trump's foes have leaned on Vullo as they've pressed judges to intervene in high-stakes disputes with the president. Among them is Mark Zaid, a prominent national security lawyer who has drawn Trump's ire for his representation of whistleblowers. Earlier this year, Trump yanked Zaid's security clearance, a decision, the attorney said in a lawsuit, that undermines his ability to 'zealously advocate on (his clients') behalf in the national security arena.' In court papers, Zaid's attorneys argued that the president's decision was a 'retaliatory directive,' invoking language from the Vullo decision to argue that the move violated his First Amendment rights. ''Government officials cannot attempt to coerce private parties in order to punish or suppress views that the government disfavors,'' they wrote, quoting from the 2024 ruling. 'And yet that is exactly what Defendants do here.' Timothy Zick, a constitutional law professor at William & Mary Law School, said the executive orders targeting private entities or individuals 'have relied heavily on pressure, intimidation, and the threat of adverse action to punish or suppress speakers' views and discourage others from engaging with regulated targets.' 'The unanimous holding in Vullo is tailor-made for litigants seeking to push back against the administration's coercive strategy,' Zick added. That notion was not lost on lawyers representing Harvard and faculty at Columbia University in several cases challenging Trump's attacks on the elite schools, including one brought by Harvard challenging Trump's efforts to ban the school from hosting international students. A federal judge has so far halted those efforts. In a separate case brought by Harvard over the administration's decision to freeze billions of dollars in federal funding for the nation's oldest university, the school's attorneys on Monday told a judge that Trump's decision to target it because of 'alleged antisemitism and ideological bias at Harvard' clearly ran afoul of the high court's decision last year. 'Although any governmental retaliation based on protected speech is an affront to the First Amendment, the retaliation here was especially unconstitutional because it was based on Harvard's 'particular views' – the balance of speech on its campus and its refusal to accede to the Government's unlawful demands,' the attorneys wrote.
The Hill
22 minutes ago
- The Hill
Johnson brushes off Musk campaign spending threats: ‘It doesn't concern me'
House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) in an interview Friday brushed off Elon Musk's campaign spending threats in light of the tech billionaire's public fallout with President Trump, suggesting he isn't worried. The spat between Trump and Musk began with the latter's criticism of the president's legislative agenda making its way through Congress. Johnson said he built a closer relationship with the then-special government employee and that the tech mogul has been led astray regarding the 'big beautiful' spending package. 'Look, it doesn't concern me. We're going to win either way because we're going to win on our policies we're delivering for hardworking Americans and fulfilling those promises,' Johnson told Fox News's 'Jesse Watters Primetime.' 'But look, I like Elon and respect him. I mean, we became friends in all this process,' he continued. 'I've been texting with him even this week … in trying to make sure that he has accurate information about the bill. I think he has been misled about it.' Musk, who contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to assist in Trump's win in the 2024 presidential election, was the biggest donor during the White House race. Amid his recent spat with Trump, which broke out in public as the two traded insults and threats, Musk argued that without his political expenditures, Trump would have lost to former Vice President Harris, Republicans would lose the majority in the House and the GOP would have failed to flip the majority in the Senate. Trump then threatened to have all federal contracts associated with the billionaire's companies to be cut off. As the fight between the two intensified, the tech executive floated the idea of forming a third party and accused the president of being named in the late Jeffrey Epstein's files. Trump has denied close ties to the disgraced financier. Musk's opposition to the GOP megabill — which he called a 'disgusting abomination' — is largely tied to deficit spending. The billionaire argued the legislation would balloon the national debt and fails to slash enough spending. The package faces an uphill battle in the Senate. While Musk, who recently left his position as the top adviser to Trump's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), seemed open to repairing ties on Friday, the president appeared to be OK with moving on. Johnson in the interview Friday defended the spending bill and commended Trump for his handling of the squabble. 'We're going to make good on this… I like the president's attitude. You know, he is moving on. He has to,' he told the host. 'He's laser-focused on delivering for the people. And House and Senate Republicans are as well. So, we've got our hand at the wheel.' 'We're going to get this done just like we told the people,' the Speaker continued. 'And if you are a hardworking American that is struggling to take care of your family, you are going to love this legislation.' The Louisiana Republican added, 'I'm telling you, all boats are going to rise and everybody's going to be in a much better mood before we go into that midterm election in 2026.'
