A meeting between President-elect Donald Trump and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., in a luxury box at the Army-Navy football game last weekend may have delayed Trump’s plans to fire Brown, according to two people with knowledge of the conversation.
For months, Trump and his close associates have vowed to immediately fire U.S. military leaders whom they deem too focused on diversity initiatives, often referring to Brown specifically. But the meeting went well, according to the two people with knowledge of the conversation.
Trump and Brown met during the second quarter of the annual military grudge match at Northwest Stadium in Landover, Maryland, on Saturday, the two people said. Trump and Brown spoke one-on-one for about 20 minutes in the owner’s box.
They got along well, and Trump is “changing his tone” on Brown, the two people said, and it now appears Trump will not fire him right away.
Brown “congratulated Trump on his election and made it clear he was ready to work with the president,” one of the people familiar with the conversation said, adding that “[Trump] liked that.” Afterward, Trump told someone traveling with him that the conversation went well and that Brown was “doing a good job,” a source said.
Trump is now more likely to keep Brown in his job, the two people said. Brown, known as “C.Q.,” assumed the chairman’s role on Oct. 1, 2023, and can serve in the position until his four-year term expires in 2027.
Brown seen as a source of stability
Several Republican lawmakers and retired generals have been urging Trump not to fire Brown because, they say, it could be destabilizing and send the wrong message to members of the military, particularly as Trump’s pick to head the Defense Department, former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth, is fighting to be confirmed.
Brown would bring stability amid Hegseth’s controversial policies, lack of experience and concerns about his character, the two people said.
A Trump transition spokesperson declined to comment on the record.
A spokesperson for the chairman of the Joint Chiefs declined to comment.
Brown met with members of the Trump transition team’s Pentagon landing team Wednesday, including Michael Duffey, a former Pentagon official who is leading the group, a defense official said.
“The chairman is actively supporting the transition team and the process,” the defense official said. “He is focused on ensuring that the president-elect and folks on his national security team are well-informed about both existing and potential threats.”
On a podcast last month, Hegseth said Brown needed to be fired.
“First of all, you got to fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Any general that was involved, general, admiral, whatever, that was involved in any of the DEI woke s— has got to go,” Hegseth said on the “Shawn Ryan Show,” a podcast whose host describes himself as a former Navy SEAL and CIA contractor.
Hegseth said people should be in the military for warfighting and “that’s the only litmus test we care about.”
One of the people who has been advocating for Trump not to fire Brown is retired Air Force Gen. Terrence “TJ” O’Shaughnessy, who works closely with Elon Musk at SpaceX.
Brown replaced O’Shaughnessy as commander of Pacific Air Forces, known as PACAF, in 2020, and the two men got to know each other on active duty. Trump then nominated Brown to be Air Force chief of staff in 2020, making him the first Black American service chief in the U.S. military.
When the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis sparked protests across the U.S. in 2020, Brown released an emotional video about the challenges and biases he endured in his personal life and throughout his decades on active duty in the Air Force. He also described the advice he gives his sons about the dangers they face as young Black men in America.
“I’m thinking about how full I am with emotion, not just for George Floyd, but for the many African Americans that have suffered the same fate as George Floyd,” Brown said in the 2020 video. “I’m thinking about our two sons and how we had to prepare them to live in two worlds.”
The candid and raw video from Brown, who is known as an introvert with a quiet demeanor, surprised many officers who served alongside him. In it, a visibly emotional Brown said, “I’m thinking about my Air Force career where I was often the only African American in my squadron or, as a senior officer, the only African American in the room.”
He added, “I can’t fix centuries of racism in our country, nor can I fix decades of discrimination that may have impacted members of our Air Force.”
Just four days after Brown released the video, on June 9, Trump praised him in an online post, saying he is “excited to work even more closely with Gen. Brown, who is a Patriot and Great Leader!”
Tensions over recruiting memo
Two years later, on Aug. 9, 2022, Brown co-signed a memo that set goals for recruiting officers in the Air Force and the Space Force broken down by race, ethnicity and gender.
While it said the goals were not intended to undermine the merit-based process for recruiting or promotions, Republicans denounced the memo, arguing it imposed racial quotas on the military and called for reducing the number of white officers in the Air Force.
During Brown’s confirmation hearing to be chairman in 2023, Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., pressed him about the memo, asking, “Do we have too many white officers in the Air Force?” Schmitt denounced what he called “race-based politics being injected into our military.”
“Somehow, some way, we ended up in a place where a general in the Air Force is advocating for racial quotas, whether it be by applicants or the number of officers or maybe the total unit, and I just think that’s wrong,” Schmitt said. “I just don’t know how we can continue to have leadership that advocates for this divisive policy.”
Brown countered that the memo only laid out goals for applications for officers in the Air Force and the Space Force.
Brown became Joint Chiefs chairman after having been Air Force chief of staff for just over three years. Throughout his 40 years in the Air Force, he was as a combat pilot flying primarily F-16s, and he commanded U.S. forces in the Middle East and the Pacific.