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      Trump, Again, Chooses Loyalty Over Leadership

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      In an era that demands stable, experienced leadership, President Trump’s decision Friday to remove Gen. Charles Q. Brown as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff — alongside other military firings and a series of contentious cabinet appointments — underscored once again an alarming preference for loyalty over expertise. This shift doesn’t just undermine the future of policy and governance; it destabilizes the very foundation of the institutions that have long safeguarded America’s democracy and substitutes politics for professionalism.The ousting of General Brown, a leader celebrated for his strategic acumen, deep experience and steady guidance, in favor of a less-tested and seemingly more compliant figure raises urgent questions: Will the new Joint Chiefs chairman dare to give Mr. Trump honest advice that he doesn’t want to hear? How will the president try to exert power over the Joint Chiefs, who have historically been essential sources of expertise and seasoned counsel? How would a politicized change in Joint Chiefs leadership affect complex discussions about geopolitical priorities, from tensions in Eastern Europe and the Middle East to the South China Sea?Friday’s purge at the Pentagon isn’t an isolated maneuver — it’s indicative of an administration intent on reshaping itself around the president’s personal network. Consider what we now know of who will serve as Mr. Trump’s cabinet. These selections follow a perilous trend where qualifications take a back seat to fealty, and where the echo of agreement becomes more valuable than evidence-based expertise.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s most notable qualification for his job was his tenure as a Fox News political commentator, a credential that has frequently eclipsed any engagement with the complex realities of defense strategy for the president. Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation hearing raised serious concerns about excessive drinking and how he treats women. To date, his leadership suggests a Pentagon more attuned to the president’s political playbook than the sobering calculus of global military engagement. His recent remarks on retreating from Ukraine, for instance, sent allies in Europe reeling, and the administration scrambling to walk them back.Then there’s Robert F. Kennedy Jr., named to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Mr. Kennedy has been a vocal skeptic of vaccines, promoting misinformation that undermines public health. His appointment to H.H.S. doesn’t just defy logic; it represents an affront to the foundational principles of the department he now oversees, which is already shelving some campaigns for flu shots and other vaccines. In this context, science is sidelined in favor of fringe theories, jeopardizing the nation’s ability to effectively manage current and future health challenges.Similarly, Tulsi Gabbard’s appointment as the country’s top intelligence officer raises multiple red flags. Beyond her military background and support of Mr. Trump’s agenda, what are Ms. Gabbard’s qualifications to oversee the president’s intel briefings and to coordinate the various branches of the intelligence community? Her foreign policy views frequently conflict with established U.S. approaches, and she has demonstrated sympathy for and defended authoritarian figures such as Bashar al-Assad, the former Syrian dictator, and President Vladimir Putin of Russia.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hegseth Fires Military’s Top JAG Lawyers in Pursuit of ‘Warrior Ethos’

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      The defense secretary has repeatedly derided the military lawyers for war crime prosecutions and battlefield rules of engagement.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s decision to fire the top lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force represents an opening salvo in his push to remake the military into a force that is more aggressive on the battlefield and potentially less hindered by the laws of armed conflict.Mr. Hegseth, in the Pentagon and during his meetings with troops last week in Europe, has spoken repeatedly about the need to restore a “warrior ethos” to a military that he insists has become soft, social-justice obsessed and more bureaucratic over the past two decades.His decision to replace the military’s judge advocate generals — typically three-star military officers — offers a sense of how he defines the ethos that he has vowed to instill.The dismissals came as part of a broader push by Mr. Hegseth and President Trump, who late Friday also fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the country’s top military officer, as well as the first woman to lead the Navy and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force.By comparison, the three fired judge advocate generals, also known as “JAGs,” are far less prominent. Inside the Pentagon and on battlefields around the world, military lawyers aren’t decision makers. Their job is to provide independent legal advice to senior military officers so that they do not run afoul of U.S. law or the laws of armed conflict.Senior Pentagon officials said that Mr. Hegseth has had no contact with any of the three fired uniform military lawyers since taking office. None of the three — Lt. Gen. Joseph B. Berger III, Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles Plummer and Rear Adm. Lia M. Reynolds — were even named in the Pentagon statement announcing their dismissal from decades of military service.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Dan Caine, Trump’s Joint Chiefs Pick, Had Unusual Path to Top Ranks

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      The general made an impression in 2018 when he said, according to the president, that the Islamic State could be defeated in a week.In President Trump’s telling, Dan Caine, the retired Air Force lieutenant general whom he wants to be his next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, made an impression on him when the two men first met in 2018.The general told the president that the Islamic State was not so tough and could be defeated in a week, not two years as senior advisers predicted, Mr. Trump recounted in 2019.And at a Conservative Political Action Conference meeting last year, Mr. Trump said that General Caine put on a Make America Great Again hat while meeting with him in Iraq. (General Caine has told aides he has never put on a MAGA hat.)On Friday, Mr. Trump said he would nominate General Caine after firing Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q.“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Mr. Trump said in a message on Truth Social. “General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”General Caine is a 1990 graduate of the Virginia Military Institute, where he received a degree in economics. He later got a master’s degree in air warfare at the American Military University.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Trump Fires Joint Chiefs Chairman Amid Flurry of Dismissals at Pentagon

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      President Trump fired the country’s senior military officer on Friday after weeks of turmoil at the Pentagon, injecting politics into selecting the nation’s top military leader.Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., a four-star fighter pilot known as C.Q. who became only the second African American to hold the chairman’s job, is to be replaced by a retired three-star Air Force general, Dan Caine, who endeared himself to the president when they met in Iraq six years ago.“Today, I am honored to announce that I am nominating Air Force Lieutenant General Dan ‘Razin’ Caine to be the next Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Mr. Trump said in a message on Truth Social. “General Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”Joint Chiefs chairmen traditionally remain in place as administrations change, regardless of the president’s political party. But current White House and Pentagon officials said they wanted to appoint their own top leaders.Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth also indicated, in a statement about General Brown and General Caine, that Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy, was being fired, as was the vice chief of the Air Force, General James C. Slife.“I am also requesting nominations for the positions of chief of naval operations and Air Force vice chief of staff,” Mr. Hegseth said. “The incumbents in these important roles, Adm. Lisa Franchetti and Gen. James Slife, respectively, have had distinguished careers. We thank them for their service and dedication to our country.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Opinion Today: Decoding the Chaos of Trump’s America

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      Where America Stands: Donald Trump’s reckless and illegal campaign to remake the government crossed more lines in Week 4, but we’re seeing the emergence of heroes and fresh demonstrations of courage.What Times Opinion Is Doing: “The actions of this presidency need to be tracked,” our editorial board wrote last weekend, as Trump tries to overwhelm people so he can blaze ahead unchecked. We are sorting through the chaos by identifying what matters most in columns, guest essays and podcasts, and we are rolling out ways to track Trump’s moves and the good work of others. Today’s newsletter is one way — looking at where Americans can’t afford to turn away from.Trump Abhors Independent Voices, Part I: Danielle Sassoon and Hagan Scotten are new names to many of us, and they are among the heroes of the Southern District of New York for standing up to Trump’s Department of Justice and its farcical orders to dismiss the Eric Adams case. Read The Times’s annotations of Sassoon’s letter to Attorney General Pam Bondi for insight into what courage and duty look like, and Justice’s Emil Bove’s letter of reply for the plain purpose of this administration: Crush anyone, even appointees and friends, who stakes out independence from Trump.Worth reading: Two deeper articles about Bove in The Times and The Wall Street Journal.Trump Abhors Independent Voices, Part II: The administration is trying to redefine free speech into state-permitted speech, with the Federal Communications Commission going after NPR, CBS and now NBC-owned Comcast, and the Trump White House penalizing The Associated Press for not using the president’s new name for the Gulf of Mexico. Keep an eye on this: Trump has long labeled facts as “misinformation,” but now he’s escalating a crackdown on disfavored speech. What happens when he renames the Panama Canal “the American Canal”?A Notorious Science Denialist Takes Power: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was confirmed Thursday as health and human services secretary — a dark day for the Senate, where many Republican members would have voted against Kennedy on a secret ballot. America will need watchdogs and whistle-blowers to protect public health from Kennedy.Worth reading: A Post examination of Kennedy’s public statements.A Terrible Message for Europe and Ukraine: Trump started negotiations on ending the war in Ukraine — with Vladimir Putin, and initially without Ukraine — at the same time Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told Europe that the United States is no longer the guarantor of European security. So Putin can take any part of Europe he wants (except maybe Greenland)?Musk in the Oval: While he wasn’t quite behind the Resolute Desk, Elon Musk held forth in the Oval next to Trump, whose moments of assent made clear for anyone who wondered if Musk was at the wheel. “The fraudsters complain the loudest,” Musk said of the brave people standing up to illegal efforts to disband agencies and cut off grants and funds authorized by Congress.Worth reading: Three closer looks at Musk from my colleagues David Brooks and Tressie McMillan Cottom (or watch her TikTok) and from The Post.Heroes in the Land: And I’d like to end with a few more heroes to read about: Brian Driscoll at the F.B.I.; Chrystia Freeland, former deputy prime minister of Canada; and the federal judge John McConnell and other judges who have issued temporary restraining orders against Trump actions. Some of these folks are heroes simply for doing their duty — a great American value that is no small thing in Trump’s America.With contributions from M. Gessen, Binyamin Appelbaum, Mara Gay, Michelle Cottle and Serge Schmemann of Times Opinion.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hegseth Says Return to Ukraine’s Pre-War Borders Is ‘Unrealistic’

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      A return to Ukraine’s pre-2014 borders is “an unrealistic objective” and an “illusionary goal” in the peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia that President Trump wants to accomplish, the U.S. Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, said on Wednesday at a NATO meeting in Brussels.In his first meeting with NATO and Ukrainian defense ministers, Mr. Hegseth told them that Mr. Trump “intends to end this war by diplomacy and bringing both Russia and Ukraine to the table.” But for Ukraine to try to regain all of the territory Russia has seized since 2014, as it insists it must do, “will only prolong the war and cause more suffering,” Mr. Hegseth said. “We will only end this devastating war and establish a durable peace by coupling allied strength with a realistic assessment of the battlefield,” he said.Mr. Hegseth also told the meeting that Mr. Trump expected Europe to bear more financial and military responsibility for Ukraine’s defense.Europe, he said, must take more responsibility for its conventional defense and spend more money on its armed forces, up to 5 percent of national output, as the United States deals with its own security risks and the challenge of China.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Her Brother Disappeared in War 80 Years Ago. She Finally Got to Say Goodbye.

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      Margery Hop Wong last saw her older brother Sgt. Yuen Hop in 1943. He was a soldier missing in action, until researchers solved the mystery behind his death.When Margery Hop Wong bade her older brother goodbye in 1943, she was just a 12-year-old girl who loved it when he took her for joy rides in his used convertible around the apple orchards their family worked.Yuen Hop left their home in Sebastopol, Calif., a small town 55 miles north of San Francisco, at 19 to join the U.S. Army. His little sister never saw him again. She knew he had died in the war, but she did not know how. Or where. Or what had happened to his body.On Friday, Ms. Wong, now 94, sat in the front pew of a mortuary just south of her home in San Francisco, her brother’s remains in a casket draped in an American flag. Younger generations of the Hop family and military veterans filled the rows behind her as a singer led the group in “Amazing Grace.”For 80 years, Sergeant Hop was lost. Now, he was found.Yuen Hopvia the Hop familyMs. Wong was the youngest of seven children born to Gin and Chan Hop, immigrants from China who spoke Cantonese and struggled to communicate with their American-born children, who grew up speaking English.Life was difficult because of anti-Chinese sentiment fueled by the Chinese Exclusion Act, passed by Congress in 1882 to dramatically restrict Chinese immigration. Chinese immigrants were regularly prohibited from living or working where they wanted, Ms. Wong recalled in an interview. She said her brother was proud to have scraped together money working as a mechanic and drying apples to buy a used convertible and tried to make life fun for his brothers and sisters.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Colonel Found Guilty of Sexual Harassment in Trial Seen as a Milestone

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      The conviction is considered one of the first of its kind since Congress required the military to change how its legal system addresses sexual assault and harassment.A former Army battalion commander has been found guilty in a military court of sexually harassing a subordinate, one of the first cases of its kind brought after an overhaul of the military’s legal system that established sexual harassment as a criminal offense.The officer, Lt. Col. Herman West of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State, was accused of repeatedly sexually harassing a female officer in his command, making unwanted comments and touching her inappropriately. He faced additional charges over his treatment of other female officers at the base.A court-martial judge on Friday found him guilty of sexual harassment, conduct unbecoming of an officer and maltreatment. Colonel West, who had been removed from his leadership role in the battalion as a result of the case, was fined over $92,000 and received a written reprimand in his personnel file. The conviction is considered to be a felony-level offense.According to court documents, Colonel West used sexually suggestive language when talking with the officer in his command. The documents also said that he had unbuttoned his pants in front of her, in addition to the inappropriate touching.During a Friday afternoon sentencing hearing, Colonel West apologized to the victims. According to a local television station in Washington, he looked directly at the female officer at the center of the case and said, “My actions were despicable.” He added, “You’ve done nothing wrong.” The woman’s name has not been publicly released.Criminalizing sexual harassment in the military was part of a broader set of changes mandated by a bipartisan law passed by Congress in 2021, the largest overhaul in generations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. (Previously, the military’s legal system did not specifically include sexual harassment as an offense, and prosecutors had to rely on other misconduct charges to bring criminal cases.) The changes also stripped commanders’ authority to decide whether to pursue charges in sexual abuse cases and other serious crimes, transferring that responsibility to specialized prosecutors.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More