WASHINGTON — Army Secretary Dan Driscoll resigned Monday after months of friction with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, the White House said, ending the tenure of the youngest civilian to lead the service and leaving the Army without a Senate-confirmed chief while the United States is at war with Iran.
Driscoll's departure, along with the expected exit this week of Deputy Army Undersecretary Dave Fitzgerald, hands Hegseth firmer control over a service whose duties have stretched well beyond conventional soldiering — from National Guard deployments to U.S. cities, to the Delta Force operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, to the ongoing Iran war.
Behind the split
Driscoll, 41, an Iraq veteran and former adviser to Vice President JD Vance, was confirmed in February 2025 and became known in the West Wing as President Trump's "drone guy" for pushing unmanned battlefield systems. A source familiar with the matter told CBS News that Driscoll had raised concerns with the administration about the Army's transformation efforts and about Hegseth pushing out generals who championed them.
Chief among those was Gen. Randy George, a close friend of Driscoll's whom Hegseth asked to retire earlier this year as Army chief of staff. Gen. Chris Donahue, commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, also filed for retirement. Both had backed a new Army drone battalion drawing lessons from Ukraine's war; the Army began winding it down this month under acting chief of staff Gen. Christopher LaNeve, CBS reported. George and Driscoll had jointly rolled out an Army Transformation Initiative last year built around more unmanned systems.
A wider clear-out
Driscoll is the latest senior military official to leave under Hegseth. Navy Secretary John Phelan quit in April; Trump said at the time that Phelan "had some conflicts with some other people." The BBC counted more than a dozen senior military officers fired by Hegseth since he took the Pentagon, including the chief of naval operations and the Air Force vice chief of staff. Semafor reported last week that Hegseth also blocked the promotion of additional Army generals.
The administration's line
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly, in a statement to CBS News and Semafor, said Driscoll had been "highly effective in advancing President Trump's agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more." Neither Hegseth nor the Pentagon publicly addressed the friction. Asked by Semafor about reports of Hegseth's presidential ambitions, Trump said his defense chief was "doing a fantastic job, but it's very early to talk about that." No Hegseth-side or Pentagon account of the split had surfaced in reporting by Monday, leaving the administration's on-the-record posture one of praise for a departing appointee.
The Army now falls to an acting civilian leader, with no Senate-confirmed successor named. Trump's next pick will inherit the Iran fight, the Venezuela portfolio, the National Guard deployments and an unresolved debate inside the service over how far and how fast to bet on drones.