GOP lawmakers divided over Hegseth’s ouster of top Army commander

Filip Timotija Fri, June 26, 2026 at 5:22 PM UTC

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Republican lawmakers are divided over Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s ouster of Gen. Chris Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa.

Some GOP lawmakers hammered Hegseth, who served in the National Guard and fought in Iraq, accusing him of rankling the ranks at the Pentagon and pushing out an experienced and well-respected military officer, while others were reluctant to weigh in, arguing all of the facts about the development should come out first.

Regardless, all Republicans heaped praise on Donahue, who was widely seen as a rising star in the Army and who spent decades in the military special operations realm, where he was an Army Ranger and part of Delta Force, rising later to commander of the elite unit.

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who has ramped up his criticism of the Trump administration since announcing his retirement at the end of the term, hammered Hegseth for making another “unforced” error and accused him of leading the Pentagon with “bro-culture bravado rather than restraint, humility and careful stewardship of the finest fighting force in the world.”

“Strong leaders are not threatened by accomplished commanders. Weak ones are. His paranoid micromanagement of senior military leaders and promotion lists is pure insecurity dressed up as reform. He is more interested in purging people he perceives as insufficiently loyal than empowering proven patriots who can actually lead,” Tillis, who is familiar with Donahue’s service during his time in North Carolina, wrote Thursday on the social platform X.

“This is not reinvigorating the warrior ethos. This is not a leader prioritizing merit. It’s sophomoric. It’s unserious,” Tillis said. “And it’s bringing great harm to our Department of Defense. Our military deserves steady, serious civilian leadership. Right now, it’s getting the opposite.”

But Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.), who sits on the House Armed Services Committee, urged caution when asked about Donahue’s retirement. He argued all of the facts should surface first and that people should “accept” that the chain of command made a decision.

“I don’t automatically presume some improper decision was made by chain of command when somebody is let go and removed from a chain of command that was unexpected. I don’t automatically doubt the integrity of that decision,” Higgins said in an interview with The Hill on Thursday.

Since taking over the Pentagon last year, Hegseth and the Trump administration have removed or pushed out more than two dozen senior military leaders, including Gen. CQ Brown Jr., the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Navy’s chief of naval operations, Adm. Lisa Franchetti; Adm. Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard; Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff; and Army Gen. James Mingus, the vice chief of staff of the Army.

All were removed with little to no explanation, as Hegseth and his allies have said the senior ranks have become way too bureaucratic. Hegseth has also sought to downsize the number of flag and general officers, and he blocked promotions of officers in the Army, Navy and Air Force, arguing the Biden administration unfairly promoted some officers and left out others who were more qualified.

The dismissals have prompted worries from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, and legislators are pushing for more transparency. Earlier this month, the House Armed Services Committee adopted a provision in the annual National Defense Authorization Act that would demand the Pentagon inform Congress, in writing, why senior military officers were fired or dismissed within five days.

Higgins said some of the military officers who were promoted in prior years should have been removed instead of moved up the chain.

“It’s been far easier within the Pentagon culture to promote than it is to fire. Like we’d rather take a guy that’s giving us trouble and actually put him in another position and give him a promotion just to get him out of this office, so we moved that problem along, because they didn’t want to face the heat of removing them,” he said. “Now you have seen your chain at the Pentagon as courageous enough to make those decisions.”

Donahue, who was the commander of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division and aided in evacuating allies from Kabul’s international airport during the chaotic and deadly U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, submitted his paperwork to retire after about a year and a half in the role. He will relinquish command on July 2, and Maj. Gen. Christopher Norrie, his deputy, will perform the duties of the commanding general.

Donahue had wide support in Congress in both parties. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll advocated on Donahue’s behalf to Congress, the White House and the Joint Staff to install him as the Army’s chief of staff after George was ousted by Hegseth, according to a U.S. official.

Driscoll was open to having Donahue be the Army’s vice chief of staff after Mingus was removed by the Defense secretary, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal personnel matters, told The Hill late Thursday.

George and Donahue had a close working relationship, along with Driscoll, according to two U.S. officials, with the first official saying the ex-Army chief of staff was “essentially grooming” Donahue for the top leadership role in the Army. The official described the Army commander as having “boundless energy, crushing PT [physical training] all the time” and as willing to share wisdom with younger soldiers.

Donahue’s retirement was directly called for by Hegseth, and the verbal order was issued shortly after George was fired by the Pentagon chief on April 2, according to the official.

Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the former chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, praised the general as a “very good” man. He said he has “a lot” of respect for him and expressed puzzlement over his ouster.

Donahue was the head of the 18th Airborne Corps, overseeing the formation of a partnership that provided intelligence and weapons to Ukraine, which aided them in their effort to defend against Russia’s invasion.

“He was in Afghanistan when it fell. He set up the Army depot to get logistics into Ukraine from Poland,” McCaul told reporters Thursday.

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“I don’t understand why Mr. Hegseth is firing him, and as a result, we’re going to lose a very talented general from the Pentagon,” McCaul said.

Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.) said he would comment on the ouster after lawmakers get an intelligence readout on Thursday.

Rep. Andy Harris (R-Md.), the chair of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said his “bandwidth is not that wide,” but he added that the decision is up to Hegseth and President Trump.

Rep. Rich McCormick (R-Ga.), who is also on the Armed Services Committee, said Hegseth did not address Donahue’s ouster during his meeting with the Republican Study Committee on Wednesday, but McCormick lauded the Army commander as a great leader.

“Unfortunate. I have mad respect for that guy. I don’t know the details, so I’m not going to continue to talk about it, because I don’t know, I don’t know him personally, but I have mad respect for the guy. He’s earned that — great leader,” McCormick told reporters Wednesday.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), a retired Air Force brigadier general and another Armed Services Committee member, has disagreed with Hegseth on some Pentagon personnel moves, and he said lawmakers do not appreciate when senior defense officials are ousted without explanation.

“We have probably about 20 generals and admirals [who] have been fired for no reason. I know many of them and they’re very good. That is concerning,” Bacon told reporters Wednesday after the Republican Study Committee meeting. “It’s not decent when you fire people with no explanation.”

Rep. Keith Self (R-Texas), a former Army Ranger who retired as a lieutenant colonel, said he spoke with Donahue last week. He praised the Army commander, who helped form the Eastern Flank Deterrence Initiative, which leverages unmanned systems supported by live data to speed up decisionmaking and deter adversaries’ advancements.

“Chris Donahue is one of the studs of the United States Army. He was a Delta commander. Just to give you a clue, you remember the Venezuela operation? He said, ‘When I was Delta commander, we did four of those,'” Self told reporters on Wednesday.

When asked if ousting Donahue was a bad decision by Hegseth, Self said, “You serve at the pleasure of the president when you’re a four-star general, so you know that’s a given.”

“I think he was a very talented, capable, competent four-star general,” he said.

When reached for comment, the Pentagon referred The Hill on Friday to the Army.

Kevin Carroll, a retired Army reserve colonel who served in the office of the secretary of Defense and on the Joint Staff, said Donahue was “perhaps” the most respected officer in the Army and his retirement will be “demoralizing” to the service branch.

“Any individual officer is replaceable, but cumulatively, the damage Hegseth is doing to the armed forces by sacking so many of its top leaders in just a year and a half is serious,” Carroll told The Hill on Thursday, adding that it appears the Defense secretary wants “‘yes-men’ who will do bad things, instead of leaders of high character such as Donahue and the other general and flag officers he has cashiered.”

Donahue’s unexpected retirement was panned outside the halls of Congress.

Conservative commentator Erick Erickson said Wednesday morning that Hegseth is “purging the American military at a faster rate than Xi Jinping is purging the Chinese military and refilling the ranks with political apparatchiks.”

Fox News host Brian Kilmeade, who has a direct line to Trump, said Thursday morning Donahue’s retirement was a “huge loss” for the U.S. and equated it to “losing Tom Brady” in the prime of his NFL career.

Kilmeade reported from Clay Kaserne Army Base in Wiesbaden, Germany in January, where the general received praise from the Fox News host and the commander in chief.

“You are doing a fantastic job. Your reputation is great,” Trump said during a call with Kilmeade, speaking of Donahue.

Kilmeade said during the broadcast that Donahue might be the most “talented 4-star in this generation.”

Donahue is friends with Ret. Army 4-star Gen. Jack Keane, Fox News’s senior strategic analyst, who Kilmeade said “just talks about what he [Donahue] has been able to do in his career and he is not done yet.” That remark was not well-received in the top echelon of the Pentagon, according to the second U.S. official.

Sudiksha Kochi contributed.

at 1:19 p.m. EDT

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