Army Secretary Dan Driscoll handed President Trump his resignation Monday and leaves the job Wednesday, after months of fighting with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The Wall Street Journal broke it. Driscoll had run the Army since February 2025.
Hegseth keeps cutting out the people who tell him no. Driscoll is the newest name on that list, and the first one who could go over his head.
Driscoll advised JD Vance before he advised Trump’s 2024 campaign, and he kept that line into the White House after he took the job. Hegseth read it as a man routing around him. The two also fought over control of a drone warfare battalion. In April, Hegseth fired Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George — Driscoll’s close friend, and the officer he ran the service with — and has nominated nobody to replace him in the five months since.
Driscoll saw the ending before he wrote it. He moved his family out of the Army Secretary’s official residence and into smaller housing weeks ago; the Journal reported that on August 21. He set his last day for September 3.
Hegseth is now weighing Sean Parnell to take the chair. Parnell is his own spokesman — Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs. The Army’s civilian leadership would pass to the man who writes Hegseth’s talking points.
Driscoll spent his tenure attacking the way the Pentagon buys things. He defended the Army’s right to repair its own equipment, opened test ranges to industry faster, and launched FUZE, a $750 million program built to move a weapon from idea to prototype in 70 days. Speaking to soldiers at the Association of the United States Army last October, he said: “You have been let down. You have been fighting, deploying, training and preparing for years, and you’ve always had each other’s backs, but unfortunately, your civilian leadership hasn’t always done the same for you.”
He was describing the job he just quit.
Narativ reported the mechanism a year ago. On the eve of Hegseth summoning 800 generals to Quantico, a defense official told us what the meeting was really for: “get on board, or potentially have your career shortened.” That was said about men with stars on their shoulders. Driscoll wore a suit, reported to the President, and had the Vice President’s ear. His career got shortened anyway.
Hegseth has now presided over the exits of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, the Chief of Naval Operations, the Army’s vice chief, the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, the Army’s chief of staff, and — as of Wednesday — the Army’s civilian secretary. That top uniformed chair has sat without a nominee since April. The former Fox weekend anchor is not finished.
