President-elect Donald Trump is already courting controversy just days after his election, as the Wall Street Journal revealed a draft executive order authored by the transition team that would establish a “warrior board” to review three- and four-star generals and determine if any should be removed from their positions. According to the Journal, the board would be made up of retired generals and officers who would review personnel based on “leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence.”
According to the document, if the board should find that a given general is “lacking in requisite leadership qualities” and Trump approves their decision, then the official would be retired within 30 days at their current rank. While the president already has the power to fire any officer as commander in chief of the military, the creation of this body signals that Trump would want a system in place in order to do so en masse. There are no details as to what actions an officer might take in order to avoid being singled out by the board.
A member of Trump’s transition team told the Journal that the plan originated from one of several outside policy groups working with them, and that it was under review. Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the Trump transition team, refused to comment specifically on the draft order, but stated that “the American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.”
Trump’s relationship with military leadership is a conflictual one, despite starting his first term with plenty of overt praise for the armed forces and staffing his White House with generals. Trump once called General James Mattis, his first Defense Secretary, “a true general’s general,” before disagreements between the two led to Mattis’ resignation (Trump claims he was “effectively fired”). The Atlantic reported in October that General John Kelly, his ex-chief of staff, said Trump had wished that his generals were like Hitler’s, as they were “People who were totally loyal to him, that follow orders.” Trump categorically denied Kelly’s claims. Last year, Trump declared on Truth Social (a social media platform which he owns) that Mark Milley deserved to be executed for contacting China to smooth things over after the attempted coup on January 6th 2021, when Milley was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. General H.R. McMaster, Trump’s national security adviser for a year during his first term, gave a scathing account of his time at the White House under the 45th president, describing meetings with him as “exercises in competitive sycophancy.”
Earlier today, Trump announced his intention to appoint Pete Hegseth, a Fox News host, as his Defense Secretary.
