Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave a tacit acknowledgment of support for Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, despite criticism of him prior to his appointment to the position.

Brown met Hegseth outside the Pentagon’s river entrance on Monday morning for the secretary’s first official arrival to the building and briefly spoke to reporters. When asked if Hegseth believes Brown should be fired, he said, “I’m standing with him right now [and] look forward to working with him.”

In November, before President Donald Trump tapped Hegseth to lead the Department of Defense, the former Fox News personality said on a podcast, “First of all, you gotta fire the chairman of the Joint Chiefs.”

During Hegseth’s confirmation hearing, he said “every single senior officer” will undergo a review “based on meritocracy, standards, lethality, and commitment to lawful orders they will be given.”

He has long railed against the military’s emphasis on diversity and inclusion efforts, arguing that it has taken away from its core mission of protecting the homeland and deterring adversaries. 

In the same podcast, he added, “Any general that was involved — general, admiral, whatever — that s*** has got to go. Either you’re in for the warfighting, and that’s it. That’s the only litmus test we care about.”

In Hegseth’s book, he questioned whether Brown was appointed to serve as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs due to his race. 

“Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to CQ. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really matter much,” he wrote.

Trump picked Brown to be the chief of staff of the Air Force in 2020.

Last week, the acting secretary of Homeland Security removed the commandant of the Coast Guard, Adm. Linda Fagan.

‘Not the way business has been done’: Hegseth emphasizes Pentagon ‘shift’ 

Hegseth emphasized on Monday that the current administration has begun a significant shift of the department’s focus to prioritize the southern border.

The Trump administration has begun a multifaceted effort to deport undocumented immigrants, both violent and nonviolent, to secure the border militarily, including to stop the flow of people and illegal drugs into the country.

“We are reoriented,” Hegseth told reporters outside the Pentagon. “This is a shift. This is not the way business has been done in the past. This is — the Defense Department will support the defense of the territorial integrity of the United States of America at the southern border, to include reservists, National Guard, and active duty in compliance with the Constitution for the laws of our land.”

The department announced the deployment of about 1,500 troops last week, and officials have said more will be on the way in the coming weeks and months ahead. That group is made up of about 1,000 soldiers and 500 Marines, while the Air Force is also conducting deportation flights of migrants to other nearby countries. There were already roughly 2,500 troops at the border.

The military’s role is to offer “support of mass deportations in support of the president’s objective.”

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Trump also signed an executive order calling on drug cartels in Central and Latin America to be deemed foreign terrorist organizations.

Hegseth said Trump has “made it very clear. There’s an emergency at the southern border. The protection of the sovereign territory of the United States is the job of the Department of Defense.”