Top Republican lawmakers have come out swinging against Pete Hegseth’s mass firings at the Pentagon.
Hegseth, 46, announced plans late last month to reduce the number of generals and admirals in the military by a staggering 20 percent. Critics have slammed the move as only the defense secretary’s latest effort to purge seasoned officials he thinks are not loyal enough to the Trump administration.
Senate Armed Services Committee chair Roger Wicker, Senate Appropriations Committee chair Susan Collins, and Sen. Joni Ernst, a member of the Armed Services Committee, all told The Hill on Monday they had only heard about Hegseth’s reductions shortly before he announced them last week.
“I didn’t get a long lead,” Wickers said, adding that he “wouldn’t have made that a priority if I had been asked.” Ernst said that “the problem is that the secretary did not come and explain this to us before acting on it, much like a lot of the firings that we’ve seen with military personnel.”
Collins, who has already raised concerns about Hegseth’s firings during Senate hearings, said the reductions are “deeply troubling” and could deprive the military of the “talent, dedication, and patriotism” among female and minority officials.
Hegseth has framed his reductions as gender- and race-neutral. Still, he has faced intense backlash after his earlier purges were found to have disproportionately affected women and Black service members.
The secretary has often railed against supposed DEI hiring practices since assuming office last year, pledging to strip race, sex, and ethnic background from promotion decisions while eliminating diversity programs and gender and racial targets across the military.
“Our system for promoting officers has always been an example of one of the greatest meritocracies that we have,” Collins told The Hill.
“I think that we should adhere to a system that has served us well,” she went on. “There may be a need to reduce the overall number of flag officers at the Pentagon, but this approach seems to be targeted on ideology.”
Other GOP lawmakers say it’s not the first time Hegseth has failed to warn them until just before announcing drastic changes at the Pentagon, or has given them too little information about his decisions.
“He’s failed to respect Congress,” Sen. Thom Tillis, who retires next year, said. “He’s never really given us fulsome briefings.”
“We control his purse strings, and he’s almost treating us like we’re some line workers down in the manufacturing facility that he doesn’t want to spend time with,” the North Carolina Republican added. “It’s a huge problem, and I think he’s the face of the problem.”
Asked for comment on this story, a Pentagon spokesperson told the Daily Beast, “It is untrue that Secretary Hegseth is basing promotion decisions on race and sex, and we have said so repeatedly.”
