Hegseth forces out Army’s top general in ‘widely anticipated’ move

Gen. Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff, is stepping down early from his position at the request of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, CBS News first reported Thursday. 

While spokespeople for the service and George did not immediately return requests for comment, a Defense official confirmed to Defense One that the service had been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the Army’s vice chief of staff was pushed out late last year.

“This shift was widely anticipated the moment Gen. [Jim] Mingus was let go,” said the official, who was not authorized to speak on the record about the matter. 

Mingus spent fewer than two years in the vice position, which is traditionally a four-year job. In his place, President Donald Trump nominated then-Army Lt. Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth’s senior military aide, who was confirmed by the Senate in January. 

George became chief of staff in the fall of 2023, setting him up for an expected retirement in October 2027. 

When George became chief of staff in fall 2023, he was expected to retire in October 2027. But the moves have set up a scenario where he could be forced out and Hegseth could quickly replace him with an ally. 

“General Randy A. George will be retiring from his position as the 41st Chief of Staff of the Army effective immediately. The Department of War is grateful for General George’s decades of service to our nation. We wish him well in his retirement,” Pentagon spokesman Seth Parnell said Thursday on social media.

George is the latest senior military official fired by Hegseth with little explanation, a string that began with the removal of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the chief of naval operations, and the vice chief of staff of the Air Force in February 2025. 

Though the Army was spared at the time, the Mingus and George firings have raised questions about whether Hegseth has his eye on the Army’s civilian leadership as well. 

“Secretary Hegseth is obviously aiming to overhaul the Army’s command structure,” the official said. “Since only President Trump holds the actual authority to remove Secretary [Dan] Driscoll, Hegseth worked around that restriction by clearing out the personnel in Driscoll’s immediate orbit instead.”

George had spearheaded an overhaul of the way the Army modernizes, notching big wins like getting the service’s next main battle tank into soldiers’ hands five years ahead of schedule. He was also a main player in the Army Transformation Initiative, a long list of reforms the Army had been asking for that Hegseth signed off on last April. 

“The tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut by the scythe,” the official said. 

A spokesman for Driscoll did not immediately respond to a request for comment.