Trump apparently now views military leaders as part of the 'deep state,' too

After tapping four generals for top Cabinet positions early in his presidency, President Trump seems to have decided that U.S. military leaders are part of "the deep state," as he explained at a recent rally in Florida.

While Trump "boasts of supporting the military, he has come to distrust the generals and admirals who run it," taking cues instead from Fox News host Pete Hegseth, The New York Times reports. "As a result, the president finds himself more removed than ever from a disenchanted military command, adding the armed forces to the institutions under his authority that he has feuded with, along with the intelligence community, law enforcement agencies, and diplomatic corps."

The Times focused on Trump's extraordinary intervention in the case of Navy Chief Petty Officer Edward Gallagher, a SEAL accused of war crimes and convicted of posing for a "trophy photo" with the corpse of an incapacitated teenage terrorism suspect he killed with a knife in the neck in Iraq, according to several members of his SEAL Team 7's Alpha Platoon. When the military court demoted Gallagher, Trump ordered his rank restored, and when the SEAL commander, Rear Adm. Collin Green, decided to boot Gallagher from the SEALs, Trump ordered him not to and Navy Secretary Richard Spencer was ousted in the process.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

Trump's "handling of the case has distressed active-duty and retired officers and the civilians who work closely with them," because they believe it "emboldens war criminals and erodes the order of a professional military," the Times reports. But some rank-and-file service members are also concerned — it was six fellow SEALs who turned Gallagher in for alleged war crimes, after all.

"It's blown up bigger than any of us could have ever expected, and turned into a national clown show that put a bad light on the teams," Chris Shumake, a former sniper who served in Gallagher's platoon, told the Times, in his first public comments on the case. Trump is "trying to show he has the troops' backs, but he's saying he doesn't trust any of the troops or their leaders to make the right decisions."