Trump plans to create a 'warrior board' of retired senior officials that can weed out 'woke generals'

Donald Trump is reportedly planning to create a 'warrior board' of retired ex-military personnel to weed out ' woke generals' deemed unfit for leadership.

The president-elect's transition team is said to be considering a draft executive order with the power to review three and four-star officers they find 'lacking in requisite leadership qualities', according to the draft seen by the Wall Street Journal.

During his campaign for re-election, Donald Trump vowed to purge the military of so-called 'woke' generals, going so far as to suggest his critic and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, could be executed for treason.

Current and former U.S. officials say Trump will prioritize loyalty in his second term and root out military officers and career civil servants he perceives to be disloyal.

As commander in chief, Trump will have the power to fire any officer at will from January. But an outside board would allow him to sidestep the Pentagon 's usual system of promotion, suggesting a looming purge, the WSJ notes.

The draft order reportedly says it will aim to set up a review focusing on 'leadership capability, strategic readiness, and commitment to military excellence'.

The conditions for meeting these standards are not laid out in clear terms.

The order was built with help from an unnamed external policy group working with the transition team to prepare Trump for office, the WSJ reports.

Karoline Leavitt, spokesperson for the transition team, did not address the order directly, but told the outlet: 'The American people re-elected President Trump by a resounding margin giving him a mandate to implement the promises he made on the campaign trail. He will deliver.'

Such an order would give the so-called 'warrior board' power to sack top officials for failing standards, although it is expected Trump will be keen to target those responsible for the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, as well as those he deems 'woke'.

Running for office, he was asked by Fox News in June whether he would fire generals described as 'woke'.

'I would fire them. You can't have (a) woke military,' Trump said.

Some officials expect the team could target the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, a widely respected former fighter pilot and military commander who steers clear of politics.

The four-star general, who is Black, issued a video message about discrimination in the ranks in the days after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, and has been a voice in favor of diversity in the U.S. military.

Asked for comment, Brown's spokesperson, Navy Captain Jereal Dorsey, told Reuters: 'The chairman along with all of the service members in our armed forces remain focused on the security and defense of our nation and will continue to do so, ensuring a smooth transition to the new administration of President-elect Trump.'

Retired army general Mark Milley, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has also severed ties with the president-elect, having called him 'fascist to the core' in the run-up to the election.

Milley stepped down in September 2023 after more than 40 years in the military, and raised concerns about Trump in his retirement speech.

In 2023 he sensationally told the Washington Post that Trump was 'the most dangerous person to this country', deeming him 'a total fascist'.

Trump's vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, voted as a senator last year against confirming Brown to become the top U.S. military officer, and has been a critic of perceived resistance to Trump's orders within the Pentagon.

'If the people in your own government aren't obeying you, you have got to get rid of them and replace them with people who are responsive to what the president's trying to do,' Vance said in an interview with Tucker Carlson before the election.

During the campaign, Trump pledged to restore the name of a Confederate general to a major U.S. military base, reversing a change made after Floyd's killing.

Trump's strongest anti-woke messaging during the campaign took aim at transgender troops.

Trump has previously banned transgender service members and posted a campaign ad, opens new tab on X portraying them as weak, with the vow that '!'

Only yesterday Trump announced that he was nominating Fox News and army veteran Pete Hegseth to serve as his defense secretary from next year.

The 44-year-old deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan and won two Bronze Stars, then unsuccessfully ran for Senate in Minnesota in 2012 before joining Fox News.

He is also the author of 'The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free.'

The book, according to its promo, combines 'his own war experiences, tales of outrage, and an incisive look at how the chain of command got so kinked,' and bills itself as 'the key to saving our warriors - and winning future wars.'

Kori Schake of the conservative American Enterprise Institute warned that a second Trump term could see high-level firings as he pushes ahead with controversial policies.

'I think there will be an enormous chaos premium in a second Trump term, both because of the policies he will attempt to enact and the people he will put in place to enact them in terms of appointments,' she said.

One U.S. military official downplayed such concerns, saying on condition of anonymity that creating chaos within the U.S. military's chain of command would create political backlash and be unnecessary for Trump to accomplish his goals.

'What these guys will find out is that military officers are generally focused on warfighting and not politics,' the military official said. I feel they'll be satisfied of that - or at least they should be.'

Trump has suggested the U.S. military could play an important role in many of his policy priorities, from tapping National Guard and possibly active-duty troops to help carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants to even deploying them to address domestic unrest.