Navy Secretary’s dismissal reinforces message that nobody is safe in the Trump administration

During the first year of his return to power, Donald Trump managed to change the image of the White House that people remembered from his first term, often portrayed as a turbulent time when the president, true to his past as a reality TV star who became famous for the cry of “You’re fired!”, could dismiss his staff at any time and in any way, often with a single tweet. He got rid of an attorney general, a secretary of state, a national security advisor, a communications director, and the head of the FBI—a list completed by numerous resignations: 14 members of his administration left between 2017 and 2021, as well as four chiefs of staff and several White House spokespeople.

This second time around, he surrounded himself with such a loyal team, so reluctant to contradict him, that it seemed that his “praetorian guard” was here to stay by his side until the very end. But these past few weeks, marked by the ousting of Attorney General Pam Bondi and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, as well as the resignation of scandal-plagued Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, have made it clear that this was just an impression.

The Navy Secretary’s dismissal—or the pressure to resign, depending on one’s preference for euphemisms—is the latest significant loss of a high-ranking official in the Trump administration (this time without Cabinet rank). It also served as further evidence of the ongoing purge being carried out by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth at the Pentagon. Hegseth and Phelan had been at odds for months, and the latter has now returned to his pre-public service pursuits: he is a billionaire art collector who raised funds for Trump’s reelection campaign.

And it seems that this last part, which clearly weighed most heavily in the appointment of someone with no experience in military leadership, remains unchanged, judging by a message from Trump on his digital platform, Truth Social. He posted it this Thursday, just hours after using the same platform to announce that he had ordered the Navy ships no longer commanded by Phelan to fire on vessels laying mines in the Strait of Hormuz.

Reports published by U.S. media outlets indicate that the dismissed officer’s wishes were not the primary factor in his departure. Phelan’s ouster is the highest-ranking in the purge carried out by Hegseth. The former Fox News host, with a turbulent past (including allegations of sexual abuse and alcohol problems), assumed a position for which he had no preparation other than his time in the Army, and which he sees as a crusade to re-establish Christian nationalist values ​​and inject a warrior spirit after years of enduring what he denounces as a “woke” dictatorship. These were, according to his perspective, the years in which the warrior fervor faded and minorities and women flourished.

Before getting rid of Phelan, Hegseth had dismissed the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Chief of Naval Operations, and the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Army, among other sensitive positions. It might not seem like the wisest idea to change the Secretary of the Navy in a country at war. But this is just adding insult to injury. On April 2, Hegseth dismissed the Chief of Staff of the Army, Randy George, without providing a reason.

Then, as now, the purge was attributed to tensions within the Pentagon. These are especially serious between the Secretary of Defense (who prefers to call himself Secretary of War, even though Congress has not authorized that title change) and the Secretary of the Army, Dan Driscoll, whom, according to sources speaking on condition of anonymity, he considers the enemy within.

Driscoll, a close ally of Vice President J.D. Vance, a potential candidate to succeed Trump in 2028, is considered in Washington to be the natural successor to Hegseth, who, according to these sources, has not yet recovered from the Signalgate scandal. This case erupted when a journalist from The Atlantic was mistakenly added to a private group chat on that encrypted messaging system where several government officials recklessly shared plans to attack the Houthis in Yemen.

That reputational crisis for a fledgling government that showed worrying signs of failing to meet expected security protocols led to the first high-profile departure from Trump’s inner circle. Just a few weeks later, the president sent Mike Waltz, after 101 days as his National Security Advisor, to serve as ambassador to the UN. It was Waltz who brought the journalist into the infamous Signal chat.

Internal divisions

Ten months passed before the image of harmony within Trump’s Cabinet, which the president likes to cultivate with live broadcasts of his meetings where everyone showers the leader with praise, was shattered once again. Last March, the Republican dismissed the controversial Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, who was responsible for the deployment in Minnesota that ended with federal agents fatally shooting two American citizens.

Attorney General Bondi was fired by for her handling of the Epstein files. Chavez-DeRemer left to mitigate the damage before an investigation into her abuses of power at the Department of Labor came to light.

So the new favorite pastime in Washington is speculating about who will be the next to walk out the door of the White House, given that Trump’s popularity levels are at rock bottom, and that he has as little patience as he does prior experience in managing government crises.

The leading prediction websites, modern-day betting houses, had Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence, in the lead on Thursday. Gabbard, a Democratic defector who told Congress she didn’t believe Iran was close to acquiring a nuclear weapon, has since struggled to regain Trump’s favor. Following Gabbard were Howard Lutnick, the Commerce Secretary implicated in the Epstein files and the lies he used to try to distance himself from his ties to the convicted sex offender, and Hegseth, for whom the administration is reportedly seeking a replacement.

Until that happens, the Secretary of Defense seems determined to continue searching for replacements for other people, such as Phelan, who has been temporarily succeeded in the post by Hong Cao. Until Wednesday, he was Phelan’s second-in-command at the U.S. Navy.

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