Defense Secretary\u00a0Pete Hegseth\u00a0has fired Navy Secretary John Phelan. The Pentagon framed it Wednesday as an immediate departure.<\/p>\n
The ouster of the Navy’s top civilian caught many off-guard and adds to the pile of military officials who have either abruptly exited or been\u00a0pushed out\u00a0of their posts under Trump 2.0.<\/p>\n
Chief Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said Phelan was “departing the administration, effective immediately,” in a post on X. He did not provide a reason.<\/p>\n
Navy undersecretary Hung Cao will take over in an acting capacity.<\/p>\n
Phelan and President Trump are said to have a good relationship. The two have texted about rust on warships.<\/p>\n
But Hegseth felt Phelan had bypassed the chain of command too much with a direct line to Trump, whose Mar-a-Lago Club in Palm Beach is near Phelan’s mansion, another source familiar with the situation said.<\/p>\n
The firing comes amid a naval standoff with Iran and some three weeks after Hegseth removed Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George and two other military leaders.<\/p>\n
Despite the turmoil, Hegseth remains in Trump’s good graces because he has a solid relationship with the president, Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n
“Those are the four most important relationships he can have, and they’re good,” said a senior administration official.<\/p>\n
“But you never know around here.”<\/p>\n
Phelan sat down with a dozen reporters Tuesday afternoon to discuss the future of the Navy and its major investments, including the Golden Fleet and its battleship and frigate.<\/p>\n
“We’re going to really need to improve our ability to build ships,” he said at the time.<\/p>\n
Phelan, a longtime financier, was confirmed by the Senate about a year ago.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense Secretary\u00a0Pete Hegseth\u00a0has fired Navy Secretary John Phelan. The Pentagon framed it Wednesday as an immediate departure. The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":39264,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[120],"tags":[25535,1205,25516,1201,1202,1203,1208,25521,25547,8586,25520,25519,25549,25536,25551,25550,25548,25553,25534,25543,1207,25517,1209,25545,1210,25546,12273,1206,25518,25525,369,25554,25524,25529,25522,25538,18,25552,25537,23611,25528,2255,25539,996,1258,25523,5458,25531,25541,1212,25544,25540,25542,25526,25532,48,6936,25533,1211,25527,25530,1204],"class_list":["post-39263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pete-hegseth","tag-907th-amendment","tag-all-news","tag-all-news-from-us","tag-apa-az","tag-apa-news","tag-apa-az-news","tag-apaaz-news","tag-atlantic-ocean","tag-border-with-mexico","tag-california-news","tag-caribbean-countries","tag-caribbean-sea","tag-cartel-news","tag-congressmen","tag-dark-skinned","tag-drug-dealer-news","tag-drug-trafficking-news","tag-hollywood-news","tag-house-of-representatives-news","tag-hurricane-news-in-america","tag-latest-news","tag-latest-news-from-us","tag-lent-az-news","tag-los-angeles-news","tag-most-read-news","tag-natural-disaster-news-in-us","tag-new-york-news","tag-news-baku","tag-news-from-latin-american-countries","tag-news-from-washington","tag-news-today","tag-niagara-falls","tag-north-american-continent","tag-oval-office-news","tag-pacific-ocean","tag-pentagon-news","tag-pete-hegseth","tag-police-violence-news-in-the-us","tag-pro-armenian-congressmen","tag-racial-discrimination","tag-secretary-of-state-news","tag-senators","tag-september-11-news","tag-silicon-valley","tag-so-called-armenian-genocide","tag-south-american-continent","tag-state-department","tag-state-department-spokesman","tag-terrorist-news-in-usa","tag-todays-news","tag-tornado-news-in-america","tag-twin-towers","tag-typhoon-news-in-america","tag-un-news","tag-us-congress-news","tag-us-news","tag-us-president","tag-us-senate-news","tag-vesti-az-news","tag-white-house-news","tag-white-house-spokesman","tag-xeber-az"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39263","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39263"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39263\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39264"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39263"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39263"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/people\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39263"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}