Army Secretary Dan Driscoll is preparing to leave the Trump administration before the end of the year, and possibly earlier, as months of tension with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth appear to be catching up with him. The reported Friday that the exit is expected to come after a turbulent stretch for the Army's senior leadership.
That timing matters because Driscoll is not leaving in a vacuum. He and his family vacated the official residence at Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall this summer, a sign that the job's center of gravity had already shifted even before the latest report surfaced. For readers watching the Pentagon, the question is not whether the Army leadership picture is changing. It already has.
Trump publicly praised Driscoll last month at a defense conference in Pennsylvania, calling him a figure with a “beautiful smile but he's actually a killer.” That praise makes the reported departure harder to dismiss as ordinary turnover. It suggests Driscoll still had support at the top, even as the internal dynamic around him was moving in the other direction.
The friction traces back to a series of changes in April, when Hegseth abruptly ousted Randy George. Donald Trump has yet to put forward a permanent replacement, leaving Christopher LaNeve to handle the chief of staff's duties in an acting capacity. An April New York Post report said Hegseth had grown increasingly worried that Driscoll could one day replace him, and that anxiety helped drive the removal of George as well as David Hodne and William Green. The same report quoted a source as saying Hegseth had been told by the White House he could not fire Driscoll, at least for the moment, and was going after people he thought were close to him.
Representatives for Driscoll declined to comment, and representatives for the Pentagon also declined to comment. What is left is a leadership gap that keeps widening: Driscoll is expected out, the Army still lacks a permanent chief of staff nominee, and the department has not said whether his departure will come quietly before year-end or sooner than that.
