Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona accused Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth of purging senior military officers based on their race and gender rather than performance, saying the pattern has weakened the armed forces’ leadership at a critical moment.
“They’re firing the wrong people, and Pete Hegseth is firing people because they’re women and they’re Black,” Kelly said in an appearance on The Briefing with Jen Psaki. “The President should fire Pete Hegseth. He’s making awful decisions. It’s putting service members at risks that I would not have expected when I served, that a Secretary of Defense would make these sort of decisions, nor a president.”
Kelly, a 25-year Navy combat veteran who serves on the Senate Armed Services Committee as Ranking Member of its Airland Subcommittee, was referring to a series of personnel actions Hegseth has taken since becoming Secretary of Defense in January 2025.
The pattern began within weeks of Hegseth’s confirmation, when he fired Gen. CQ Brown, the second African American to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to serve as Chief of Naval Operations, both without public explanation. Hegseth was replaced as chairman by Gen. Dan Caine, who was promoted directly to four-star general shortly before his appointment.
Hegseth has since dismissed or reassigned several other senior women. He removed Air Force Lt. Gen. Jennifer Short from her post as his senior military assistant in early 2025, fired Vice Adm. Shoshana Chatfield from her role as the U.S. military’s envoy to NATO’s military committee, and reassigned Vice Adm. Yvette Davids, the first woman to lead the U.S. Naval Academy. The administration separately fired Adm. Linda Fagan, the first woman to serve as commandant of the Coast Guard.
In March, Hegseth intervened directly in the promotion process to block four Army officers, two Black men and two women, from being promoted to one-star general, an unusually direct intervention that a U.S. official confirmed to multiple news outlets. Hegseth reportedly pressed senior Army leaders for months over the decision. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll pushed back on the move, reportedly telling Hegseth that “the president is not a racist or sexist” before Hegseth’s office relented on at least one of the four officers, who was later promoted.
Pentagon chief spokesman Sean Parnell disputed the characterization of the promotion decisions at the time, saying that “under Secretary Hegseth, military promotions are given to those who have earned them” and that “meritocracy, which reigns in this Department, is apolitical and unbiased.” Neither the Defense Department nor the White House offered a performance-based explanation for the specific officers affected.
Hegseth later fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, whose term had been expected to run through 2027, shortly after George sought a meeting with Hegseth to discuss the blocked promotions.
Hegseth has publicly defended the broader effort as a rejection of the previous administration’s diversity policies. “For too long, we’ve promoted too many uniform leaders for the wrong reasons, based on their race, based on gender quotas, based on historic so-called firsts,” Hegseth told a gathering of high-ranking officers. He has also said the military eliminated “harmful” diversity, equity and inclusion programs, declaring “DEI is dead at DOD.”
In total, Hegseth has fired or sidelined at least two dozen generals and admirals since taking office, according to reporting that has tracked the personnel actions, with women and Black officers representing a disproportionate share of those removed.
Sen. Jack Reed, the Senate Armed Services Committee’s Ranking Member, said he was looking into the allegations surrounding the blocked promotions when they first surfaced in March. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul Eaton said publicly at the time that he believed “the senior leadership of the U.S. military has been substantially damaged” by the pattern of dismissals.
Kelly’s own relationship with Hegseth has also been contentious. Hegseth moved in January to censure Kelly and downgrade his military retirement rank over a video in which Kelly and other retired service members reminded troops they could refuse illegal orders, prompting Kelly to file a lawsuit against Hegseth and the Pentagon that he described as a fight against an “unlawful and unconstitutional” use of power, according to a Senate floor speech he delivered on the matter.
Neither the White House nor the Pentagon has issued a direct public response to Kelly’s latest remarks calling for Hegseth’s removal.