Gen. CQ Brown Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who President Trump had threatened to remove if he took office, said Monday he intends to remain the country's highest-ranking military official.
“That's my plan,” he told reporters as he left the Capitol.CNN reported.
Brown, who attended President Trump's inauguration ceremony in the Capitol Rotunda, spoke of Trump and his allies' plan to immediately fire military leaders they deem to have placed too much emphasis on diversity efforts. It has been a target of the pledge for several months.
Those who attacked Brown included President Trump's defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth, who said on a podcast in early November that Brown, who is Black, needed to be fired.
“First of all, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff has to be fired. The general, the admiral, whatever, that was involved in the DEI awakening has to go,” Hegseth said. He spoke on the show.
That rhetoric appeared to change after Mr. Trump and Mr. Brown met in the plush box seats at an Army-Navy football game in December.
NBC News reported at the time that the two spoke one-on-one for about 20 minutes, and that President Trump “changed his tone” about the four-star general.
aThe photo was published laterThe Trump campaign spread footage on social media of the two men sitting next to each other and talking during the game.
Brown became the second Black man to serve as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on October 1, 2023, following the late Colin Powell. Chairman terms are typically four years, so Brown could remain in the position until September 30, 2027.
President Trump has a rocky relationship with retired Gen. Mark Milley, whom he appointed to the position during his first term. Milley, who has had a public feud with Trump, was among those who received a last-minute pardon from President Biden on Monday.
Brown, a former Air Force combat pilot who eventually rose to become Chief of Staff of the Air Force, released an emotional video addressing the 2020 protests across the country sparked by the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. And it caused a stir.
“I think about how emotional I am, not just for George Floyd, but for the many African Americans who have suffered the same fate as George Floyd,” Brown said in the video. “There is,” he said. “I think about our two sons and what they had to prepare to live in two worlds.”
He continued: “I remember my career in the Air Force, where I was often the only African American in my squadron, or the only African American in the room as a senior officer.”
