Navy Secretary John Phelan abruptly left his position as the Navy’s top civilian official on Wednesday, the latest in a string of high-profile leadership changes at the Pentagon, including the recent ouster of Gen. Randy George, the former Army chief of staff.
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell announced Mr. Phelan’s departure in a brief post on X, saying Mr. Phelan was leaving the Pentagon “effective immediately.”
“We are grateful to Secretary Phelan for his service to the Department [of the Navy] and the United States Navy,” Mr. Parnell said. “We wish him well in his future endeavors.”
Mr. Phelan was sacked as the Navy remains engaged in a high-stakes blockade of Iran’s ports and coastlines. The firing occurred the day after the Navy submitted its annual budget, including $65.8 billion in shipbuilding funds to buy 18 battle force ships and 16 auxiliary ships.
“This is a strategy-driven budget,” Mr. Phelan said. “It’s not about ‘business as usual,’ it’s about making generational investments in real, usable capabilities for our warfighters.”
On Tuesday, Mr. Phelan was a keynote speaker at the Navy League’s annual Sea-Air-Space conference.
“I told you that I love complex problems, and the [Department of the Navy] has plenty of those. I told you I may have underestimated how complex these problems were. I was right on both counts,” he said.. “I didn’t come here for ‘easy,’ I came here to solve problems, hard problems that deliver results.”
He had planned to be on Capitol Hill in a couple of weeks to discuss the Navy’s budget with lawmakers.
The departure of Mr. Phelan is the latest in what has become a revolving door of top officials at the Pentagon since Pete Hegseth took over as defense secretary in early 2025. They include Gen. Charles Brown, Jr., the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs; Army Gen. Randy George, Army Chief of Staff, and Admiral Lisa Franchetti, Chief of Naval Operations.
Retired Navy Rear Adm. Mark Montgomery, an analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies think tank, said he wasn’t disappointed about the apparent firing of Mr. Phelan. He told The Washington Times that picking him in the first place was a bad idea.
“His selection of a replacement frigate was wrong-headed. The National Security Cutter design is missing [anti-submarine warfare] and air defense systems, and the hull is noisy,” Adm. Montgomery said. “The battleship is also a terrible choice — both strategically and tactically — but the blame for that starts with the president.”
