QUANTICO, Va. — U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said Wednesday that the Pentagon had cut 20% of the nation’s generals and admirals, defending the move against critics who called it a “purge” of military leadership during his annual “State of the Force” address at Marine Corps Base Quantico.
“The number crunchers say that we fired 10% of the generals and admirals across the force, and that number sounds about right,” Hegseth told 600 officers and service members, according to CBS News and other outlets. “And I know because I directed it that we’ve also reduced the overall number of general officer slots by an additional 10%. So yes, 20% reduction across the board. Now, the media calls that a purge. I call it accountability, and long overdue.”
Hegseth, speaking a year after he summoned top officers to the same base to demand an end to what he called “woke” policies, said officers who had not gotten on board with his vision “no longer work here.” He said the military should have no place for “no fatties, no trannies, no beardos, no weirdos, no wimps, no radicals,” adding: “We are no longer the woke department or the weak department.” The address also laid out plans for a new base and an autonomous warfare command, according to the BBC.
There are roughly 850 generals and admirals in active service across the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Air Force and Space Force, according to the latest department tally. Since taking office in January 2025, Hegseth has fired or pushed to retire more than two dozen senior military leaders, including the Army’s top uniformed officer, Gen. Randy George, former Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. CQ Brown, and former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti, according to AP reporting.
The cuts drew bipartisan criticism. Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., a former Navy combat pilot and NASA astronaut, said Hegseth was “purging a generation of great leaders of the military, and it’s going to take a generation to recover from it.” Republican Sen. Mike Rounds of South Dakota said he wanted to understand the reasoning, adding: “If it’s simply a matter of eliminating a very heavy top, there may be some validity to it, but I want to see it first.” Hegseth first moved to cut 20% of four-star generals in 2025, arguing in a memo that the aim was to free the military from “unnecessary bureaucratic layers.”