Lawmakers in Both Parties Seek Limits on Hegseth's Firings of Senior Officers; Army Has No Senate-Confirmed Leaders After Driscoll's Exit

No One Runs the Army Right Now

The United States Army has nobody in charge. Not on the civilian side, not on the military side. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned after 18 months on the job, and his last full day was Wednesday, September 2 ^[2][1]. That followed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's firing of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George back in April, a post that still has no confirmed successor ^[1][16]. Both of the Army's top jobs are currently filled by people who never went through Senate confirmation ^[1][3]. President Trump has named Adam Telle as acting secretary ^[15].

Driscoll's exit came the same week Hegseth moved against seven more Army officers, all of them picked for two-star rank, according to The New York Times. The Hill puts that number at six ^[5][13]. Sources told CNN and Al Jazeera that Driscoll had objected to Hegseth removing the generals running the Army's modernization programs, the very people building the weapons and technology upgrades the administration itself wants ^[4][16].

This is the top of a much bigger pile. Military.com counts at least 20 senior uniformed and civilian leaders fired or pushed out under Hegseth ^[6]. The New York Times counts wider still: more than 80 generals and admirals either fired or blocked from promotion, something like 10% of the military's top officer corps ^[5]. However you count it, the Army now has five four-star generals. It had ten when Hegseth took the job ^[16].

What "20% Fewer Four-Stars" Actually Means

Hegseth has framed this as trimming fat, not settling scores. He ordered active-duty four-star positions cut by at least 20%, and general and flag officer ranks overall by 10% ^[18][6]. His argument: the military built up too many senior posts, and some officers reached those posts for reasons that had more to do with diversity, equity, and inclusion goals than pure merit ^[16][18].

That argument runs into a specific and disputed episode from March 2026, when Hegseth pulled four names off an Army one-star promotion list — two Black officers and two women ^[12][22]. These weren't names Hegseth found himself. They came off a list that a board of senior officers had already reviewed and approved, which is how the military normally decides who gets promoted ^[12]. Senior officials told NPR they could not remember another defense secretary striking individual names from a vetted list ^[12].

That promotion-board system exists as a buffer, a way to keep politics out of who wears more stars. It's also the norm Hegseth's move broke. Georgetown's Institute for Women, Peace and Security called the pattern discriminatory ^[22]. The Pentagon has not cited a performance problem with any of the officers removed from that list ^[12].

Hegseth's broader defense rested partly on history and partly on numbers. He's pointed to past presidents firing generals when they lost confidence in them, going back to Lincoln and Truman ^[15]. But one of his specific claims collapsed under scrutiny: The New York Times traced his assertion that 197 general officers were removed under President Obama and found it had no real basis, tracing the figure to an old, unsigned 2018 editorial that mixed unrelated dismissals like DUIs with general-officer policy removals ^[14].

A Letter From 19 Months Ago, Mistaken for News

Here's a mix-up worth untangling before going further, because it changes how "new" this fight actually is. A letter demanding Hegseth explain his firing criteria gets cited constantly as a fresh sign of bipartisan alarm. It was actually sent February 21, 2025, more than a year and a half before Driscoll's resignation ^[7][8]. Six House Armed Services veterans signed it: five Democrats plus Republican Don Bacon ^[7]. One of the five Democratic signers, Mikie Sherrill, has since left the House.

That doesn't mean the bipartisan concern is fake. It means the concern is old, and it's been building the whole time rather than erupting all at once. What's actually new and live right now is a rule the House Armed Services Committee added to this year's defense bill. It would require the Pentagon to tell Congress in writing, within five days, why it fired a senior official ^[11][9]. The committee adopted it by voice vote, meaning members called out "aye" or "no" as a group rather than casting individual recorded votes. That typically signals nobody organized real opposition to it ^[11].

The concern also isn't confined to one party. Bacon, a retired Air Force general, said the firings show "a lack of character" ^[25][9]. Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine went further, asking publicly whether Hegseth is settling a personal "grudge" against the Army ^[10]. Kaine noted the Senate's version of the defense bill doesn't yet address the removals directly, though he said bipartisan guardrails could still get added ^[9].

Whose Confidence Does the Military Answer To?

Underneath the specific firings sits a genuine structural collision, and it doesn't resolve cleanly for either side. The president can remove military officers essentially at will; that's civilian control of the armed forces, a bedrock principle. But the Senate confirms senior officers in the first place, which gives Congress a real claim to know why those officers are being removed ^[11][15]. Neither side is wrong about its own authority. They just don't agree on where the line between them sits, and the five-day notice rule is effectively a test of that.

There's a second pressure layered on top: timing. The United States has been at war with Iran for more than six months as of this fight ^[1][5]. Pulling out experienced commanders and leaving their posts vacant costs more during a war than it would in peacetime, regardless of who's right about the underlying reasons ^[1][5]. Acting officials are currently running the Army while that war continues.

The Hill reports that people close to Driscoll believe Hegseth is doing "generational damage" to the Army's officer corps ^[23]. That's their read, not an established fact. It captures what's genuinely at stake if the critics are right: careers stalled, experience drained, and a promotion system that officers no longer fully trust.

The Same Story, Told Four Different Ways

Coverage of this story splits along fairly predictable lines, though each version includes real reporting worth reading. Fox News framed it as a "presidential power play with a long history," leading with Lincoln and Truman firing generals of their own. That framing makes the current wave sound like a normal exercise of an old power, though Fox's piece also reports Republican concern and Driscoll's objections in the same story ^[15].

The New York Times headline said Hegseth "targets" officers while Driscoll is "frustrated," language that assigns motive and mood right in the headline. Its "more than 80" figure blends firings with blocked promotions into one number, which makes the scale look larger without distinguishing the two ^[5]. CNN went further, putting "culture war fixation" directly in a headline sourced to unnamed people close to the situation ^[21].

Al Jazeera called the firings "purges" in its own voice, not just as a quote from critics, though it also included the administration's stated DEI-related rationale ^[16]. Iran's state broadcaster Press TV ran with "wartime purges" while Iran and the United States remain at war, coverage that leans into American disarray without noting its own government's stake in that framing ^[17].

What Happens Next Isn't Written Yet

Whatever the true balance of merit-based reform and political retaliation turns out to be, one fact doesn't depend on resolving that argument: filling the Army's top jobs with Senate-confirmed leaders will take months ^[1]. Confirmation hearings, background vetting, and a Senate floor vote don't happen overnight, and Congress is not currently rushing that process for either the secretary post or the chief of staff post.

The defense bill's five-day notice requirement, if it survives into a final law, would be the first real check tying Hegseth's hand-outside of confirmation and floor speeches. It hasn't happened yet. Neither has any Senate action on the broader guardrails Kaine mentioned ^[9]. Until one of those moves, the Army keeps running on acting leadership, in a war, with a promotion process both parties are now watching closely for the next name pulled off a list.