President Donald Trump passed the buck to one of his most loyal Cabinet members over a controversial firing decision.
Republican Sen. Joni Ernst called Trump, 80, in April to complain about the firing of former Army chief of staff Gen. Randy George, according to The New York Times.
The Iowa senator, who retired as a lieutenant colonel in the Iowa Army National Guard in 2015, defended George as one of the Army’s most esteemed leaders and added that the general’s parents had voted for Trump.
The president told Ernst, 56, that he had no hand in the decision and that his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, made the choice.
“Tell the general I’m sorry,” the president said, according to the Times.
The Daily Beast has reached out to the Pentagon and the White House for comment.
Hegseth, 46, fired George, a four-star general, after George declined the defense secretary’s request to remove two Black and two female officers from a list of personnel who were set to be promoted.
The self-styled “Secretary of War” replaced George with Gen. Christopher LaNeve as the acting Army chief of staff. But Trump has yet to formally nominate him, as some Republicans on the Senate Armed Services Committee, including Ernst, have opposed his appointment over concerns about his qualifications.
LaNeve, 59, has only been a four-star general for six months, which has concerned lawmakers. Most generals hold that rank for at least three times as long before becoming chief of staff.
Committee Chairman Roger Wicker made clear in May that Hegseth would need all 14 Republicans to vote in support of LaNeve’s appointment for him to be confirmed.
Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon has seen a considerable exodus of top officials, primarily at the defense secretary’s request.
Since the former Fox & Friends Weekend host took office, the number of active four-star generals in the Army has shrunk from 10 to only five—the fewest in decades, the Times reported.
Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who has clashed frequently with Hegseth over the last year, is also expected to leave the administration in the next few months, according to a Wall Street Journal report published last week.
Hegseth has viewed the former Army Ranger as a threat to his job, targeting those close to Driscoll in an effort to diminish his influence.
“[Hegseth] is very concerned about being fired and he knows that Driscoll is one of the top contenders, or a natural contender, to succeed him,” a source close to the administration told the New York Post in April.
