Members of President-elect Donald Trump’s transition team are drawing up a list of military officers to be fired, two sources said, in an unprecedented Pentagon shakeup.
Planning for the layoffs is in the early stages after Trump’s Nov. 5 election victory and could change as the Trump administration is in the planning phase.
One of the sources questioned the feasibility of mass purges at the Pentagon. It was also unclear whether Trump himself would support the plan, though he has in the past pushed back against defense leaders who have criticized him.
The second source said the incoming administration would likely focus on US military officers seen as connected to Mark Milley, Trump’s former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Milli has been targeted by Trump supporters for disloyalty to the former president.
“Every person who was promoted and appointed by Milli will go,” the second source said. There is a very detailed list of everyone who was connected to him. And they will all leave.”
The Joint Chiefs of Staff include the highest-ranking officers of the US military and the heads of the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, National Guard, and Space Force.
The revelation of plans to fire senior US military leaders comes a day after Trump picked as defense secretary Pete Hegseth, a Fox News commentator and veteran who has expressed a desire to clean up the Pentagon.
“The next president of the United States must fundamentally overhaul the Pentagon’s senior leadership to get us ready to defend our nation and defeat our enemies. A lot of people have to be fired,” Hegseth has said.
It is unclear whether Hegseth’s lack of management experience could complicate his Senate confirmation, and whether a more traditional alternative for the position would have carried out such sweeping firings.
Some current and former US officials have downplayed the possibility of such a major reversal, saying it would be unnecessary and disruptive at a time of global turmoil with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.
The first source said it would be bureaucratically difficult to fire and replace a large swath of senior US military officials, suggesting the plan could be sinister and aggressive from Trump allies. But the second source suggested that Trump’s camp believed the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be shrunk because of perceived bureaucratic overreach. Such cuts could be sustained in an organization the size of the US military, the source said.
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