Pete Hegseth Fires Adm. Lisa Franchetti, Navy’s Top Officer

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said on Friday that he was firing Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first female officer to rise to the Navy’s top job of Chief of Naval Operations, and would be looking for her replacement.

The announcement came in a statement emailed to reporters Friday night, shortly after President Trump said he was firing Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Mr. Hegseth said in his statement that he would also replace Gen. James C. Slife, the Air Force’s vice chief of staff, as well as the top uniformed lawyers for the Army, Navy and Air Force.

Both Admiral Franchetti and General Slife “have had distinguished careers,” Mr. Hegseth said, adding “We thank them for their service and dedication to our country.”

“Under President Trump, we are putting in place new leadership that will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars,” he added.

According to her official biography, Admiral Franchetti received her commission in 1985 through the Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps program at Northwestern University, just seven years after the Navy ended its prohibition on women serving on ships at sea.

She became a surface warfare officer at a time when women joining the fleet in that role were typically limited to serving on auxiliary ships — noncombat vessels that carry cargo, fuel, ammunition or specialized equipment to repair submarines.

The prohibition against women serving on warships ended in 1993, opening the door for officers like Admiral Franchetti to compete equally with their male counterparts. Women were not allowed on submarines, however, until 2010.

She spent roughly half of her 40-year career at sea, rising to command the destroyer U.S.S. Ross, and later a destroyer squadron, two aircraft carrier strike groups, all naval forces in Korea and the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean Sea.

Admiral Franchetti became the 33rd Chief of Naval Operations on Nov. 2, 2023, making her the first woman to have a permanent seat as a member of the Joint Chiefs.

At the time, the White House cited Admiral Franchetti’s “extensive operational and policy experience” as among the reasons President Joseph R. Biden Jr. had picked her.

The firing of a service chief such as Admiral Franchetti is vanishingly rare, though President Trump fired another four-star female admiral less than 24 hours after his second inauguration.

That was Adm. Linda L. Fagan, who as commandant of the Coast Guard shattered a glass ceiling to become the first woman to lead a branch of the armed forces.

The last Chief of Naval Operations to not complete a full four-year term in office was Adm. Mike Mullen, who became the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 2007.

A decade earlier, Adm. Jeremy M. Boorda, a Chief of Naval Operations who was the first person in Navy history to begin their service as an enlisted sailor before becoming a four-star admiral, died by suicide in 1996.

Thirty years before that, the Navy’s chief during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Adm. George W. Anderson, retired early in 1963 after clashing with Robert McNamara, who was the defense secretary at the time.

During his second administration, Mr. Trump has shown personal animus toward high-ranking military officers, both those on active duty and some who retired years ago.

Mr. Trump has suggested that Gen. Mark A. Milley, his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who retired in 2023, should be executed for engaging with his Chinese counterpart during the turmoil surrounding the Jan. 6 insurrection.

General Milley’s official portrait as chairman was removed from the Pentagon on Inauguration Day.

A week later, Mr. Hegseth revoked General Milley’s government-funded personal security detail, which was provided to the retired general because of the death threats he has received from Iran following the U.S. strike that killed a powerful Iranian general in early 2020.

Mr. Trump’s supporters have also threatened General Milley over his contacts with his Chinese counterpart during the first Trump administration, assuring them that the United States was not seeking to strike them, or trigger a military crisis.