Joint Chiefs Chairman Brown on list to possibly be removed from post by Hegseth
Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Gen. CQ Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s top admiral, are among the list of general officers provided to Congress this week indicating that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth could fire or remove from their current jobs, according to two U.S. officials.
Brown serves as the president’s senior military advisoer and has been chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff since October 2023, his four year tenure is supposed to end in 2027.
Franchetti has been the Chief of Naval Operations since November 2023.
Both officers had previously been criticized by Hegseth prior to his becoming defense secretary during the Trump administration.
This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.
(HELENA, Mont.) — The Montana House of Representatives advanced a bill to ban transgender people from using public bathrooms that do not align with their sex assigned at birth, the first of this type of legislation to progress in the 2025 session.
It is one of 138 anti-LGBTQ bills in the U.S. tracked by the ACLU so far this year.
This comes after a bipartisan effort in December to reject a measure that would have banned state Rep. Zooey Zephyr — the first openly trans lawmaker in the state — from using the women’s bathroom at the state Capitol.
The new bill states that a “restroom, changing room, or sleeping quarters … that is designated for females or males may be used only by members of that sex.”
The bill seeks to define sex “based on the organization of the body parts and gametes for reproduction,” adding that the sexes are defined by “sex chromosomes, naturally occurring sex chromosomes, gonads, and nonambiguous internal and external genitalia present at birth” and not any other definition of gender.
The bill does not include a definition or classification for those born intersex, or people with ambiguous genitals, chromosomes, hormones or reproductive organs that are neither clearly male nor female at birth.
The bill does not state how it will be enforced or how those using such facilities will be checked. However, the bill does state that residents can sue for attorney fees and other costs if “another individual of the opposite sex” is using a single-sex facility.
When her colleagues declined to support a similar bathroom ban in 2024, Zephyr applauded the rejection: “I’m happy to see that this proposed ban failed and am grateful for my colleagues — particularly my republican colleagues — who recognized this as a distraction from the work we were elected to do,” she posted on social media platform X. “I’m ready to represent my constituents & look forward to working on behalf of Montana.”
Critics of bathroom bans say they create a false “fear” of transgender people. They argue transgender people aren’t inherently dangerous and are four times more likely to be victims of violence than cisgender people, according to recent studies.
In a past interview, Zephyr told ABC News that she believes anti-transgender rhetoric and legislation have been a distraction from the issues facing average Americans.
“Leave trans people alone, let us live our lives and let our representatives get back to trying to make our states better places for all of us,” Zephyr said.
ABC News reached out to Zephyr for comment on the measure Wednesday.
Zephyr did not immediately respond to ABC News’ request for comment on the measure Thursday.
Those in support of the bill argue that restrictions on bathroom use enhance safety and privacy for women.
Montana Rep. Kerri Seekins-Crowe, a Republican, said the bill “reflects the values and priorities of Montanans, protecting privacy, safeguarding dignity, and ensuring safety for women and children in vulnerable places.”
She continued, “This bill is not about exclusion or hate, it’s about common sense boundaries that have served our society for generations.”
One study in the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal was unable to find evidence that trans-inclusive policies on restrooms, lockers and changing rooms increase safety risks or related crimes.
Transgender people – who are estimated to make up less than 1% of the adult population – have been the focus of conservative-sponsored legislation across the country.
Last year, restrictions on transgender participation in sports, bathroom use, gender marker changes, pronoun use in schools and gender-affirming care made up a majority of the record-breaking 533 anti-LGBTQ bills tracked by the ACLU in the 2024 legislative sessions nationwide.
Zephyr won her bid for reelection to the Montana House of Representatives after she was censured and barred from the House floor for almost two years for protesting a gender-affirming youth care ban in her state.
Sen. Jack Reed, the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, said Sunday that President Donald Trump’s Friday night purge of senior Pentagon leaders is a threat to the nonpartisan nature of the military.
“It was completely unjustified. These men and women were superb professionals. They were committed to their oath to defend the Constitution of the United States. And, apparently, what Trump and [Defense Secretary Pete] Hegseth are trying to do is to politicize the Department of Defense, and it’s not surprising they put Kash Patel as the FBI director, who is a partisan, who has no, I think, respect for the traditions of neutrality of the FBI,” Reed said in an exclusive interview with ABC News’ “This Week” co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
“And, now they’ve turned to DOD, and they want everyone in DOD beholden to the president, not to the Constitution,” he said. “They want everyone there to do what they’re told, regardless of the law.”
Trump fired Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown in a controversial move Friday evening. In addition to Brown, the administration fired other senior officials, including the Navy’s top admiral, Chief of Naval Operations Lisa Franchetti.
It was the first time two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have had their roles terminated.
In a social media post, Trump said he was nominating retired Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs, which will have to be confirmed by the Senate.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a group of senior uniformed leaders who serve as the top military advisers to the president and Department of Defense officials. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was created with the idea of it being apolitical. By design, officers’ four-year terms intersect two presidents.
Reed said the purge degraded the military, especially the firing of three top military lawyers.
“What was also startling in the weekend was firing all the advocate generals of the military. If you’re going to break the law, the first thing you do is you get rid of the lawyers. So we’re looking at a very dangerous undermining of the values of our military, and the repercussions are being felt already,” he said. “People questioning whether they should say, talented leaders, wondering if they should get out. It is, it’s, the beginning of a very, very serious degradation of the military and politicization of the military.”
Retired Gen. George Casey Jr., a former U.S. Army chief of staff who served under former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama, pointed out that Brown’s dismissal could leave the United States vulnerable.
“That’s extremely destabilizing at a time that there’s a lot going on domestically and a lot going on abroad. When you remove so many senior leaders, especially without justifying and giving due cause, it creates huge uncertainty in the ranks, and it just isn’t a good thing for the military at a very difficult time,” Casey said.
Trump and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said they would remove Diversity, Equity and Inclusion programs from the military and Hegseth alluded that Brown’s firing was because of his involvement in those initiatives.
“That’s a problem for me, because these leaders were following the lawful directives of the civilian leaders of the past administration, and now we’re going to put leaders in jeopardy and punish them for following lawful orders from another administration. I mean, give me a break,” Casey said.
However, despite his disapproval of the administration’s action, Casey said that Trump acted within his rights as president. He added that the firings should have been explained better.
“I may disagree with the timing and everything of these, of these removals, but it’s purely, it is significantly within the president’s prerogative. That’s his, that’s his prerogative. He is the commander in chief of the armed forces, and we follow the directives of, the, our civilian leaders,” Casey said.
U.S. District Judge James Boasberg; Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images
(WASHINGTON) — Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts pushed back against President Donald Trump’s call to impeach a judge whose ruling conflict with his administration’s priorities.
In a statement on Tuesday, Roberts issued a rare statement after Trump hurled insults at the federal judge who conducted a “fact-finding” hearing on Monday over whether the Trump administration knowingly violated a court order when it handed over more than 200 alleged gang members to El Salvadoran authorities over the weekend.
“This judge, like many of the Crooked Judges’ I am forced to appear before, should be IMPEACHED!!!” Trump wrote. “WE DON’T WANT VICIOUS, VIOLENT, AND DEMENTED CRIMINALS, MANY OF THEM DERANGED MURDERERS, IN OUR COUNTRY.”
“For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision,” Roberts said in the statement. “The normal appellate review process exists for that purpose.”
The statement signals a stark difference in opinion between the judicial and executive branches.
Trump argued on Tuesday that he should not be prevented from carrying out his immigration agenda, saying “I’m just doing what the VOTERS wanted me to do.”
Trump’s comments about Boasberg came after the federal judge blocked the Trump administration from deporting any noncitizens after the president’s recent proclamation invoking the Alien Enemies Act to deport alleged members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Boasberg, in verbal instructions during a hearing on Saturday, gave orders to immediately turn around two planes carrying noncitizens if they are covered by his order, including one that potentially took off during a break in the court’s hearing. However, sources said top lawyers and officials in the administration made the determination that since the flights were over international waters, Boasberg’s order did not apply, and the planes were not turned around.
On Monday, Boasberg questioned whether the Trump administration ignored his orders to turn the planes around, saying it was “heck of a stretch” for them to argue that his order could be disregarded.
Deputy Associate Attorney General Abhishek Kambli argued Monday during the “fact-finding” hearing convened by Boasberg that the judge’s directive on Saturday evening to turn around the flights did not take effect until it was put in writing later that evening.
Boasberg ordered the Justice Department to submit, by noon Tuesday, a sworn declaration of what they represented in a filing Monday — that a third flight that took off after his written order on Saturday carried detainees who were removable on grounds other than the Alien Enemies Act.
ABC News’ Devin Dwyer and Sarah Beth Hensley contributed to this report.
