Military Secretary Dan Driscoll’s resignation follows a strained relationship with Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth and repeated warnings to the White Home, together with Chief of Workers Susie Wiles, about what has been described as Hegseth’s widespread and seemingly indiscriminate firing of senior navy officers, in accordance with sources accustomed to the matter.
Driscoll additionally warned the White Home about unprecedented efforts by Hegseth to dam others from advancing into the navy’s highest ranks after that they had been totally vetted, the sources stated.
Driscoll resigned Monday final week at one of many busiest moments for the service because the top of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, making a probably vital management void because the Military takes on a rising listing of calls for.
Secretary of the Military Dan Driscoll, Secretary of Battle Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump attend a dignified switch at Dover Air Pressure Base for navy casualties of the conflict with Iran, July 22, 2026, in Dover, Del.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Pictures
Driscoll additionally spoke with President Donald Trump final week when he submitted his resignation, in accordance with two sources accustomed to the dialog. He instructed Trump that Hegseth’s chaotic removing of a few of the Military’s most skilled leaders, usually with little or no clarification, was hurting the drive and shrinking the pool of officers obtainable for future senior instructions, one of many sources defined.
Trump appeared stunned by the extent of the issue, the supply stated.
Greater than two dozen senior U.S. navy officers have been fired or sidelined by Hegseth with none public clarification.
“The President has full belief in Secretary Hegseth, who’s doing an unimaginable job main the Pentagon,” Anna Kelly, a White Home spokesperson stated in an announcement, including that leads to latest navy operations, together with the conflict in Iran “communicate for themselves.”
In an announcement, Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell stated, “Secretary Hegseth communicates with the president day by day and is grateful to serve a commander-in-chief who loves our navy,” and he added that Hegseth “takes nice pleasure in holding the White Home knowledgeable.”
Driscoll arrived on the Pentagon as an unconventional alternative. He had no nationwide safety expertise and was a little-known determine whose background was largely in enterprise capital and Republican politics.
He served within the Military from 2007 to 2010 as a cavalry officer with the tenth Mountain Division and deployed to Iraq in 2009. He left the service as a primary lieutenant, a junior officer rank that might have given him restricted publicity to the large-scale operational planning and institutional administration required to run the Military.
In 2020, he ran unsuccessfully for North Carolina’s eleventh Congressional District, ending sixth in a crowded Republican main. He later suggested the Trump-Vance transition staff and labored for the Republican Nationwide Committee.
However Driscoll shortly turned some of the standard figures in nationwide safety circles and earned bipartisan help on Capitol Hill. A few of that goodwill got here merely from distinction with Hegseth, in accordance with officers accustomed to the dynamics.
Driscoll was broadly seen as much less combative and positioned himself as a driving drive for modernizing the Military by way of updating its doctrine and integrating robots, drones and different rising applied sciences into the drive.
“This can be a massive hit to the Military,” one senior protection official stated about Driscoll’s exit, talking on the situation of anonymity as a result of they weren’t licensed to speak to the press.
The official believed Driscoll had served as a buffer between Hegseth and the Military, notably by pushing again by way of the White Home on Hegseth’s purge of senior officers, even when these efforts in the end did little to gradual it.
Driscoll befriended Vice President JD Vance years earlier once they attended Yale Regulation Faculty collectively. That relationship was broadly considered as a key purpose Hegseth was unable for some time to push Driscoll out regardless of tensions between the 2.
Driscoll’s reputation additionally grew from his work with Democrats, together with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., on so-called right-to-repair reforms aimed toward reducing by way of Pentagon guidelines and protection trade restrictions that may forestall troops from fixing their very own gear. In lots of circumstances, protection corporations require their very own personnel to make repairs or exchange elements, an costly course of that may go away gear sidelined for months and even years.
The Military secretary job has usually been marked by turnover, with appearing officers and tenures of roughly two years or much less being frequent up to now 20 years. John McHugh was a notable exception, serving from 2009 to 2015 beneath President Barack Obama and changing into one of many longest-serving Military secretaries in latest many years.
Secretary of the Military Dan Driscoll testifies on price range requests throughout a Senate Committee on Armed Providers listening to on Capitol Hill, Might 12, 2026.
Saul Loeb/AFP by way of Getty Pictures, FILE
Parnell, the Pentagon spokesperson and an Military veteran, is broadly considered as a possible substitute for Driscoll and has advocated for the job behind the scenes, in accordance with a number of U.S. officers accustomed to the matter.
Nevertheless, Parnell would face a tough affirmation battle. He dropped out of a Pennsylvania Senate race in November 2021 amid allegations from his estranged spouse of abuse throughout a contentious baby custody case. Parnell has denied the allegations.
Driscoll’s departure is the newest high-profile departure of a senior protection official throughout Hegseth’s tenure.
In April, then-Navy Secretary John Phelan was abruptly compelled out with out clarification, as was Gen. Randy George, the Military’s prime officer on the time, serving as Driscoll’s most senior advisor.
On Tuesday, former Air Pressure Secretary Frank Kendall expressed considerations in a New York Instances op-ed that the navy’s senior officers have chosen to maintain a low profile in relation to a few of the Trump administration’s actions involving the U.S. navy, singling out Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers.
“After they aren’t ignoring how irregular issues have turn into, they flip to the opposite method, claiming that they don’t have any accountability for the actions the armed forces have been ordered to take as a result of these orders have been ‘coverage’ selections outdoors the scope of their duties,” wrote Kendall. “This can be a cop-out, and it’s placing our democracy in danger.”
When requested about Kendall’s feedback, Joe Holstead, a spokesman for Caine, stated: “The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Workers stays centered on his obligations as principal navy advisor to the President, the Secretary of Battle, and the Nationwide Safety Council, which embrace offering finest navy recommendation and a spread of navy choices together with all related dangers, impacts, and secondary concerns.”
