Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican who voted to confirm Pete Hegseth as defense secretary, now says Trump should fire him, calling his management of military personnel the worst he has seen in eight years on the Armed Services Committee.
Tillis published the broadside on X on Wednesday, hours before outgoing Army Secretary Dan Driscoll's last day in office. Driscoll had submitted his resignation to President Trump on Monday after 18 months on the job. The White House praised his tenure. But the North Carolina senator used the departure as an indictment of the man sitting above Driscoll in the chain of command.
The clash marks the sharpest public break yet between a Senate Republican and the defense secretary. Tillis is retiring, which frees him to speak without fear of a primary challenge, but his credentials on military personnel policy are difficult to dismiss. He chaired or served as ranking member of the Armed Services Committee's Personnel and Readiness subcommittee, the panel that oversees the very workforce Hegseth now manages.
The senator's post did not mince words. Tillis wrote on X:
"I served on Senate Armed Services for 8 years and as chair or ranking member of the Personnel and Readiness subcommittee. I have never witnessed more inept management of the brave men and women who serve our country."
He went further, accusing Hegseth of driving competent leaders out of the building rather than fighting to keep them.
"He is intimidated by competence and retreats to ginning up culture wars instead of soberly attending to the vital work of our national defense and the health and well-being of our fighting force."
Tillis credited Driscoll and Gen. Randy George, the former Army chief of staff whom Hegseth removed in April, with launching what Tillis called "a transformative period of innovation in how we array our forces and equip our Soldiers." Both men are now gone. Tillis said a defense secretary with the right priorities would be "fighting to retain talented leaders like Dan and the many flag officers he has forced into retirement."
Instead, Tillis charged, Hegseth "is creating a leadership void at the top of our military ranks."
Driscoll's own public comments struck a markedly different tone. In a post on X on Tuesday, the outgoing Army secretary praised his boss.
"We could not have made the progress we did without the support of Secretary Hegseth."
White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly also praised Driscoll on Monday, saying he provided "outstanding leadership during historic military operations" and assisted with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.
But a source familiar with the matter told CNN a different version. That source said Driscoll had raised concerns in his resignation about Army transformation and readiness, and about Hegseth "blocking those efforts specifically by firing the generals who were responsible." If accurate, the gap between Driscoll's public gratitude and his private objections is wide.
Sen. Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said he was "disappointed" by the resignation. He did not elaborate publicly.
Driscoll's exit is not an isolated event. CBS News has tallied at least 20 departures from the Pentagon's top ranks under Hegseth's leadership, spanning both uniformed commanders and civilian appointees. That number includes Gen. George's removal in April and, more recently, Gen. Chris Donahue, who relinquished command of U.S. Army Europe and Africa earlier this summer.
The Donahue decision drew sharp criticism from within the GOP. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican and retired Air Force brigadier general, put the scale of the firings bluntly.
"We have probably about 20 generals and admirals [who] have been fired for no reason. It's not decent when you fire people with no explanation."
Tillis offered an even harder assessment at the time, accusing Hegseth of paranoia rather than reform. "His paranoid micromanagement of senior military leaders and promotion lists is pure insecurity dressed up as reform," Tillis told Newsmax.
Wednesday's call for Hegseth's removal did not come out of nowhere. Tillis has been building a public case against the defense secretary since at least May, when he accused Hegseth of giving Trump misleading assessments of military progress against Iran.
Tillis said Hegseth had told the president that the United States had "obliterated" Iran's defenses and that seizing Iran's nuclear material was only a matter of time. Months later, Iran continued to disrupt global oil shipping through the Strait of Hormuz with mines and drone attacks. "How does that make sense at all?" Tillis asked in May.
The senator also flagged a unilateral decision by Hegseth to halt the deployment of 4,000 U.S. troops to Poland, a move Trump later reversed by ordering 5,000 troops sent there instead. Multiple lawmakers have raised concerns about depleted stockpiles of critical weapons, including Patriot interceptors and Tomahawk missiles, as operations against Iran have dragged on.
Hegseth's halted troop cuts in Europe added to a pattern of decisions that were either reversed or overruled from above, a pattern that undercuts any claim of steady leadership at the Pentagon.
Tillis is not alone in calling for change. Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, echoed the demand. "It is far past time for President Trump to recognize the lasting harm that Pete Hegseth is inflicting on the Department of Defense," Reed said.
Bipartisan agreement on firing a cabinet secretary is rare. When a retiring Republican senator and the ranking Democrat on the same committee land on the same conclusion, the political ground beneath a defense secretary is unstable.
The White House has not responded directly to Tillis's call. Neither has Hegseth. The silence leaves several questions unanswered: whether Driscoll's resignation letter explicitly named Hegseth as an obstacle, whether the full document will be released, and whether Trump, who has previously backed Hegseth through internal clashes, sees the latest departure differently.
What is not in dispute is the math. At least 20 senior defense officials have left under one secretary. An Army secretary who publicly praised his boss on the way out may have privately told a different story. And a Republican senator with eight years of oversight experience says the personnel damage is the worst he has ever seen.
A defense secretary's job is to keep the nation's best military talent in uniform and in command. When the people leaving are the ones doing the hardest work, the person doing the firing owes the country a better explanation than silence.
