Tom Bowman
Appearances
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-23-2025 6PM EST
Clearly, he's going to get rid of the diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the Pentagon. And there's concern among the senior ranks at the Pentagon that he may make personnel changes. He's been critical of the first woman to run the Navy, Admiral Lisa Franchetti. She could be out of a job. He's also basically said they want to bring their own people in. So that could mean, again,
NPR News Now
NPR News: 01-23-2025 6PM EST
Some military, senior military officers are losing their jobs. We just don't know at this point.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 03-05-2025 8PM EST
U.S. officials, including National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, they've indicated that a pause might be short-lived if President Trump determines Ukraine is serious about moving forward with peace talks. But the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Mark Warner of Virginia, said cutting off intelligence support to our Ukrainian partners will cost lives.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-01-2025 8PM EST
Captain Rebecca Lobach was 28 and from Durham, North Carolina. She was a distinguished military graduate from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, commissioned in 2019 as an active duty aviation officer. She died along with fellow pilot Chief Warrant Officer Andrew Eaves and crew member Staff Sergeant Ryan O'Hara.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-01-2025 8PM EST
Lobach's best friend, First Lieutenant Samantha Brown, an active duty field artillery soldier, described her as brilliant and dedicated, a fierce competitor. She would march 12 miles with a 45-pound pack at a pace faster than the standard for infantry soldiers. Lobach hoped to fly her Black Hawk at some point in a combat deployment and dreamed of one day becoming a doctor. Tom Bowman, NPR News.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-14-2025 8PM EST
Those officials, I'm told, started showing up at the Pentagon today and will work well into next week. And there's a memo circulating that's calling for 8% cuts at the Defense Department. Now, we're not certain if that's going to start at the Office of Secretary of Defense, which includes thousands of employees, or if that 8% is also for all the armed services.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-14-2025 8PM EST
And that could include not only personnel, but weapons systems and so forth. We're also hearing that the Navy could be in a position for more funding because Trump officials want to build more ships to keep up with China.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-16-2025 8PM EST
I'm not going to ask those officers to be immigration officers. I'm not going to push them to enforce immigration law. I told him I want to arrest the bad guy. I want to arrest the public safety threats. I want to get Riker Zion so we can get the public safety threat before they're released to the street. I want his help, especially the NYPD Intelligence Unit.
NPR News Now
NPR News: 02-16-2025 7PM EST
Brian Gibbs got the news on Valentine's Day. He was an environmental educator at the Effigy Mounds National Monument in Northeast Iowa, an ancient Native American burial site. The park holds a lot of meaning for him.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Well, no, the important word here is cause. Why are you being relieved? None of these people, not one of them was given a cause why they've been relieved. The thread with all of them is. is the perception of they got the jobs because of race or gender or because this sense of woke.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, wrote in his book, The War on Warriors, that came out, I think, last year, that basically he questioned whether C.Q. Brown, African-American, got the job because of his race or because of his skill. He's an F-16 pilot with, you know, more than a thousand hours in the cockpit. And then Lisa Franchetti, he also questioned her.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Did she get it because of her gender? And finally, the number two Air Force officer, General Jim Slife, after the George Floyd murder, he basically said, listen, you know, We may have a problem with institutional racism in the Air Force. We have to deal with it head on. That's the thread with all of them.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Exactly right. A very emotional video after George Floyd was killed. He talked about the discrimination he felt rising up the ranks of the Air Force. And again, Hegseth in his book said C.Q. Brown with that was playing the race card.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Well, he nominated him to be the chief of staff of the Air Force and was effusive about him back at that time.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
He is a lieutenant general, spent a lot of his time in the special operations community and also at the CIA. People I talk with that have known him for years say he's very well regarded. He's a great officer. The problem is he's never held a combatant command like, you know, Central Command, which covers the Middle East or Southern Command for Central and South America.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
And he also was never a service chief, you know, chief of staff of the Air Force, let's say. That is highly unusual. And actually by statute, the person coming in as chairman has to have one of those jobs. He's never run a large organization, but again, he's held in pretty high regard. But he's going to have a really tough time running the Pentagon as a chairman.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
I just got back from skiing in Montana. It was awesome.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
That's right.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
And one thing to point out here, Susan, is that what effect will this have on recruiting? Yeah. Is that a good job for me? You know, or African-Americans. Right. If they're treating people this way and saying, oh, you just got the job because of race. Why would I want to join that organization if they're already basically saying, you know, you're not up to standard?
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
No, that's right. I mean, he considers them roadblocks. And he said that in his confirmation hearing, they're tying the hands of warfighters. And of course, there is a concern. You know, it's funny because everyone was focused on C.Q. Brown and also Lisa Franchetti, the top officer in the Navy. We were all focused on that, me and others. We miss the Jags.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
And people called me after the story came out about C.Q. Brown and Franchetti and said, Tom, Look at the lawyers. Look what they're doing. And what they're looking for apparently is more compliant lawyers, right? So we could have problems with – let's say they want to use active duty troops on American streets, which previous defense secretary said is not a good idea.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
It violates the Posse Comitatus Act after the Civil War. which basically says active duty troops should have no policing role on American cities. And finally, I was talking with Frank Kendall, who is Air Force Secretary under Joe Biden. And he said one of his concerns is, let's say you're doing a bombing run in Yemen or Iraq or Syria. They're very, very careful not to have any civilian casualties.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
And the lawyers look through that with a fine tooth comb. That could go away. That's his concern. And that's a concern of others.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
I've spent a lot of time in Iraq and Afghanistan and some time in Syria. The hands of the American service members are not tied. I've been on many combat operations, and clearly they can do the job with the lawyers.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Right. And they're looking at up to 55,000 cuts at the Pentagon and also the defense agencies like Defense Intelligence Agency, National Security Agency. But they're doing a review of all of those just to see if it makes sense with the national security standard to fire all those people.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
That's right. But still, if you're cutting 55,000 across the Pentagon and all the agencies, that's a pretty big deal.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
Well, I think so. I mean, you know, they are pushing for an audit, which clearly makes sense from a taxpayer standpoint, right? But there is a lot of fear at the Pentagon among the senior ranks. You know, am I next? I'm walking on eggshells. You know, do I mention diversity at all ever? So, you know, what can I say? What can I not say?
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
So I think everyone is kind of worried about the way ahead, not only with personnel issues, but also with issues like NATO. Are they going to reduce troops in NATO? Are they going to move troops from, let's say, Germany to Poland? What is the way ahead here? And again, everyone is nervous. They just don't get a sense of this.
The NPR Politics Podcast
Trump Administration Fires Top Pentagon Officials, Military Lawyers
It's a very big deal. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs is the top military advisor to the president. They usually stay in office four years. He was in there for about 16 months. They also fired the top Navy officer, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to hold a job. And they threw over the side the number two Air Force officer, General Jim Slife. This is unprecedented.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Well, these programs have been seen as pretty effective in bringing more women and minorities into the ranks at all levels. President Biden chose the first woman, Admiral Lisa Franchetti, to run the Navy, as well as the first black defense secretary, Lloyd Austin. But Donald Trump and his defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth, have dismissed these programs as woke and divisive.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Another thing they question is extremist activity. My colleague Lauren Hodges and I talked about all this in our recent podcast, A Good Guy. It focused on an active duty Marine, Sergeant Josh Bate, who was in the Capitol on January 6th and pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor. Abate told the court in a written statement that he was wrong about the election being stolen.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
And by the way, a Marine panel voted to keep him in, and he's still on active duty.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Well, first of all, it's important to note that about one in five of those who were arrested for January 6th activities had military backgrounds, nearly all veterans. Now, Pentagon officials have long insisted that they don't have an extremism problem, that the numbers are small. You know, they really don't know because they've never collected data.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
And the services within just within the last several months said they would collect such data. And they outlined prohibitive behavior such as joining militia groups, raising money for them or attending rallies for extremist groups.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Well, he has been very outspoken, not only about his opposition to DEI programs, but also efforts to better understand whether the Pentagon and the military services have an extremism problem. Here he is at his confirmation hearing when he was asked about that by Republican Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota. Let's listen.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Now, officials who worked on these anti-extremist efforts say, no, it's not political. It's not what politician you support or even ideas you might have. It's all about action. Again, like joining the militia groups, taking part in racist or anti-government rallies. But clearly, all these efforts to collect data on extremism, will end.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
Well, we could see him making some personnel changes, maybe removing military leaders he believes got the job, not based on merit, but because of their gender or race. There is concern with people I talk with in the Pentagon, in the officer corps. At this point, we'll just have to wait and see.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
You're welcome.
Up First from NPR
Trump Visits Disaster Zones, DEI and the Military, London Hacking Hearing
The holes were so filled with bodies that there wasn't enough dirt to reach the other side to cover.