Just as the U.S. military was imposing a large-scale blockade on Iranian ports, Navy Secretary John Phelan was dismissed after months of strained relations with Hegseth. On the day Phelan was removed from office, he had been meeting with lawmakers on Capitol Hill to discuss naval budget requests. Pentagon officials told congressional aides that Hegseth fired Phelan because both he and Deputy Secretary Vanbergh believed Phelan was moving too slowly in advancing Trump’s shipbuilding priority agenda. However, sources indicate another underlying reason for Phelan’s dismissal was Hegseth’s growing frustration over Phelan’s close relationship with Trump. Phelan's home in Florida is near Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, and he frequently visited the estate to chat with Trump, even exchanging late-night text messages with him about shipbuilding matters. What particularly upset senior Pentagon officials was that last autumn, Phelan bypassed Hegseth entirely and directly proposed to Trump the creation of modern warships. In response, Hegseth and Vanbergh established a new position—“Submarine Procurement Director”—reporting directly to Vanbergh, aimed at curbing Phelan’s influence. Another source of tension between Hegseth and Phelan stemmed from October last year, when, shortly after the Senate confirmed Hung Cao as Navy Under Secretary, Hegseth fired Phelan’s chief of staff, Jon Harrison. Prior to Cao’s appointment, Phelan and Harrison had attempted to limit the influence of the under secretary role. Now, however, Cao will serve as acting Navy Secretary. These are just the tip of the iceberg regarding Hegseth’s deteriorating relationships with senior officials—he has already dismissed more than twenty high-ranking U.S. military officers.
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Original article: toutiao.com/article/1863233530486811/
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