Donald Trump is considering establishing a “warrior board” to review senior officers in the US military and weed out “woke generals”, according to reports.
A draft executive order under consideration by the president-elect’s transition team would set up a board of retired senior officials to audit top brass that do not meet standards of “leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence”.
The move is thought to be Mr Trump’s first step in tackling the issue of “woke generals”, which he complained about on the campaign trail, arguing that diversity and inclusion politics had become more important than war-fighting ability.
A copy of the order, seen by the Wall Street Journal, suggests the process will effectively be outsourced to trusted former officers.
The suggestion comes amid Pentagon fears of a purge after Mr Trump takes office on Jan 20 next year.
The Republican platform policy document formally signed off at the party’s National Convention before the presidential election promised to “get woke Left-wing Democrats fired as soon as possible”.
Mr Trump has said that any generals involved in the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan should resign by lunchtime on the day he takes office.
Called general a ‘loser’
The former president has faced criticism from several of the generals who served in his first administration, including Gen Mark Milley, who called him “fascist to the core”. In return, Mr Trump called Gen Milley a “loser”.
The pair clashed in 2021 after Mr Trump called for the officer’s resignation over his comments about critical race theory in a congressional hearing.
“On the issue of critical race theory, etc, a lot of us have to get much smarter on whatever the theory is,” Gen Milley said.
Mr Trump said later that he had “defended critical race theory being shoved down the throats of our soldiers”.
Separately, Jack Teixeira, a former Massachusetts Air National Guard member, was on Tuesday sentenced to 15 years in prison for sharing Pentagon secrets online.
Prosecutors said he had leaked information about US support for Ukraine and a foreign adversary’s plot to target American forces on the social media site Discord.
Teixeira said: “I wanted to say I’m sorry for all the harm I’ve wrought and I’ve caused. I can’t really sum up how contrite I am that my behaviour has caused such a maelstrom.”
