Pentagon insiders are complaining about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s “mean girls” politics after several military leaders were pushed out in the middle of President Donald Trump’s war with Iran.
The abrupt firings this month of Navy Secretary John Phelan and Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, plus Hegseth’s very public feud with Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, have Defense Department employees wondering who will be axed next.
An administration official told Axios there’s been “a lot of confusion and head-shaking” at the Pentagon this week.
“It feels so much like petty, high-school or middle-school drama,” the source said. “You have this pervasive, ‘Oh my gosh, what is the next perceived slight that is going to upset the Mean Girls?’”
The Pentagon did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Phelan, 62, a billionaire investor and longtime Trump friend and donor, was fired this week after months of tension with Hegseth, 45, who was reportedly unhappy about Phelan going over his head and dealing directly with Trump.
The defense secretary and his deputy, Stephen Feinberg, reportedly convinced the president that the Navy boss wasn’t moving quickly enough on a plan to develop a new “golden fleet” of “Trump class battleships” that Trump wants by 2028.
George, meanwhile, reportedly got caught up in the feud between Driscoll, 40, and Hegseth, which has been going on since March 2025 when the defense secretary was facing a series of scandals and Driscoll’s name was being floated as a possible replacement.
So far, the White House has stood by Driscoll, a longtime friend of Vice President JD Vance, so the defense secretary has apparently instead resorted to ousting Driscoll’s allies, including George.
The four-star general was forced to retire at age 61 after he and Driscoll defied Hegseth and refused to remove two Black and two female officers from a list of military members to be promoted to one-star generals, citing the officers’ long and exemplary service.
News of the blocked promotions was leaked to The New York Times in late March, and within days, Hegseth and his aides had zeroed in on George as the suspected source of the story, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Hegseth called George on April 2 while Driscoll was on vacation with his family in North Carolina. In a terse conversation that lasted less than a minute, he demanded George’s resignation after 42 years of service, sources told the Journal.
Driscoll told lawmakers during a hearing this month that he had opposed George’s removal.
The firing of Phelan despite his close relationship with Trump—he has a home just down the street from Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, where the two regularly have dinner—has reportedly raised questions about whether Driscoll’s friendship with Vance will be enough to spare him.
