Hegseth ousts Navy secretary amid Iran naval standoff

What happened

The Pentagon on Wednesday said Navy Secretary John Phelan, a billionaire financier and donor close to President Donald Trump, was leaving “effective immediately,” in what was widely reported to be a firing engineered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth after months of infighting. Phelan’s abrupt departure came amid an escalating naval standoff between the U.S. and Iran over control of the Strait of Hormuz.

Who said what

After Trump unilaterally extended a tenuous ceasefire, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps on Wednesday attacked three cargo ships in the strait, seizing two. “These were not U.S. ships” or “Israeli ships,” White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said on Fox News. The news media is “blowing this out of proportion.”

As the Navy’s top civilian leader, Phelan had “no role overseeing deployed forces,” The New York Times said, so his firing “is not likely to have significant implications” for the war. But it’s the latest in Hegseth’s “near-continuous purge of the military’s most senior ranks,” often “with little public explanation,” The Washington Post said.

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Hegseth believed Phelan was “moving too slowly” on ramping up shipbuilding and “was also irked by Phelan’s direct communication with Trump,” CNN said. Hegeth was “particularly annoyed” when Phelan “pitched the idea” for a modern “Trump Class” battleship directly to the president, The Wall Street Journal said.

What next?

Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao, a Navy veteran and former GOP congressional candidate in Virginia, is now acting secretary.