Before Resigning, Army Chief Gave Trump an Earful

Army Secretary Dan Driscoll used his exit interview to fire a warning shot, the Atlantic reports. In a meeting at the White House last week, Driscoll told President Trump that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's sweeping removals of senior officers were hollowing out the Army's leadership and undermining efforts to modernize, four sources tell the outlet. Trump was described as taken aback by the scale of the shake-up. Driscoll then disclosed he would resign, which he did days later. With him gone, the Army now lacks a Senate-confirmed civilian chief, a top general, an operations commander, and a European commander.

Axios quotes US officials who described Hegseth as "suspicious and paranoid" about Driscoll because of the latter's close ties with Vice President JD Vance, his Yale Law classmate. Driscoll's willingness to speak with reporters outside the Pentagon's favored press pool apparently didn't help. The Wall Street Journal, which was the first to report on the resignation, describes "months of tension" between the two men. Hegseth's critics say his push to sideline "woke" leaders has drained experience and diversity from the ranks, and fear Driscoll's likely replacement will be politically aligned with him, which one defense official tells the Atlantic could result in "generational damage" to the branch.