President Donald Trump abruptly fired Air Force Gen. CQ Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday, sidelining a history-making fighter pilot and respected officer as part of a campaign to rid the military of leaders who support diversity and equity in the ranks.
The ouster of Brown, only the second Black general to serve as chairman, is sure to send shock waves through the Pentagon. His 16 months in the job had been consumed with the war in Ukraine and the expanded conflict in the Middle East.
“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. He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family,” Trump posted on social media.
Trump says he is nominating Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to be the next chairman. Caine is a career F-16 pilot who served on active duty and in the National Guard, and had most recently served as the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, according to his official military biography.
Brown had spent the day at the U.S.-Mexico border, assessing the military’s rapid buildup of forces to meet Trump’s executive order on countering illegal immigration.
Trump acted despite support for Brown among key members of Congress and a seemingly friendly meeting with him in mid-December, when the two were seated next to each other for a time at the Army-Navy football game. Brown had been meeting regularly with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who took over the top Pentagon job just four weeks ago.
But Brown’s future was called into question during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s confirmation hearing for Hegseth last month. Asked if he would fire Brown, Hegseth responded bluntly, “Every single senior officer will be reviewed based on meritocracy, standards, lethality and commitment to lawful orders they will be given.”
Hegseth has embraced Trump’s effort to end programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the ranks and fire those who reflect those values.
Hegseth had previously taken aim at Brown. “First of all, you gotta fire, you know, you gotta fire the chairman of Joint Chiefs,” he said flatly in a podcast in November. And in one of his books, he questioned whether Brown got the job because he was Black.
“Was it because of his skin colour? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt – which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter,” Hegseth wrote.
As he walked into the Pentagon on his first day as defence chief on Jan. 27, however, Hegseth was asked directly if he planned to fire Brown.
“I’m standing with him right now,” said Hegseth, patting Brown on the back as they headed into the building. “Look forward to working with him.”
In his second term, Trump has asserted his executive authority in a much stronger way and removed most carry-over officials from President Joe Biden’s term, even though in typical transitions, many of those positions are meant to carry over independently from one administration to the next.
A career F-16 fighter pilot with more than 3,000 flight hours and command experience at all levels, Brown is known as a calm but determined leader with a track record for driving institutional change. His selection as chairman was seen as key to propelling the military from two decades of war in the Middle East to a focus on preparing for and deterring potential conflict with China.
Just prior to his Senate confirmation vote in June 2020 to become chief of the Air Force, Brown gained some attention when he spoke out on the police killing of George Floyd the month before. While he knew it was risky, he said, discussions with his wife and sons about the killing convinced him he needed to say something.
As protests roiled the nation, Brown posted a video message to the Air Force titled, “Here’s What I’m Thinking About.” He described the pressures that came with being one of the few Black men in his unit. He recalled pushing himself “to perform error-free” as a pilot and officer his whole life, but still facing bias. He said he’d been questioned about his credentials, even when he wore the same flight suit and wings as every other pilot.
“I’m thinking about my mentors, and how I rarely had a mentor that looked like me,” Brown said in the video. “I’m thinking about how my nomination provides some hope, but also comes with a heavy burden – I can’t fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force.”
Brown was overwhelmingly confirmed by the Senate with a vote of 98-0. Not long afterward, his name began to surface as the likely successor to Gen. Mark Milley, who was set to retire as chairman.
Brown’s path to the chairmanship was troubled – he was among the more than 260 senior military officers whose nominations were stalled for months by Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama. Tuberville caused ire in the Senate and organizational juggling in the Pentagon when he blocked the confirmations in protest over a department policy that paid for travel when a service member had to go out of state to get an abortion or other reproductive care.
But when the Senate vote was finally taken in September 2023, Brown easily was confirmed by a vote of 89-8.
As chairman, Brown spent much of his time on the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, helping to determine what military aid to send to Kyiv and co-ordinating support for Israel as it battled Hamas and fought off several significant attacks from Iran.
Born in San Antonio, Texas, Brown is from a family of Army soldiers. His grandfather led a segregated Army unit in World War II and his father was an artillery officer and Vietnam War veteran. Brown grew up on several military bases, which helped instill in him a sense of mission.
It had been 30 years since Colin Powell became the first Black chairman, serving from 1989 to 1993. But while African Americans made up 17.2 per cent of the 1.3 million active-duty service members, only 9 per cent of officers were Black, according to a 2021 Defence Department report.
Brown’s service as chairman made history in that this was the first time that both the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, and the Joint Chiefs chairman were Black.