Hegseth Asked Top Admiral to Resign After Months of Discord
Relationship between Pentagon chief and military leader had been deteriorating since Trump’s inauguration
Dec. 3, 2025 7he Wall StrTeet Journal
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shocked official Washington in mid-October when he announced that the four-star head of U.S. military operations in the Caribbean was retiring less than a year into his tenure.
But according to two Pentagon officials, Hegseth asked Adm. Alvin Holsey to step down, a de facto ouster that was the culmination of months of discord between Hegseth and the officer. It began days after President Trump’s inauguration in January and intensified months later when Holsey had initial concerns about the legality of lethal strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, according to former officials aware of the discussions.
Not long after, Hegseth announced that Holsey would be retiring.
Hegseth’s move, which hasn’t been previously reported, sheds new light on a brewing controversy over the legality of the military’s campaign in the Caribbean, and raises questions over whether servicemembers with concerns about the attacks are being listened to.
While Hegseth has dismissed a number of high-ranking military leaders since taking over the Pentagon, the ouster of a commander during an unfolding military operation was an extraordinary move, lawmakers and experts note.
“Having [Holsey] leave at this particular moment, at the height of what the Pentagon considers to be the central action in our hemisphere, is just shocking,” says Todd Robinson, who served as assistant secretary for international narcotics and law enforcement affairs until January.
A Pentagon spokesman declined to comment.
The admiral, a 60-year-old Navy helicopter pilot nicknamed “Bull,” had seemed a good fit to carry out Trump’s military campaign against drug traffickers after the new president came into office. Holsey voiced support for stepping up interdiction of drug shipments and had experience at such missions.
“My first deployment to the Southcom area of responsibility was over 33 years ago conducting counterdrug missions,” he told lawmakers at his Senate confirmation hearing in September 2024, arguing for a more muscular approach to “dismantle the drug cartels” responsible for tens of thousands of American deaths.
Originally from rural Georgia, Holsey led a carrier strike group and, during Trump’s first term, served as the first commander of an international naval flotilla charged with protecting commercial shipping in the Persian Gulf and neighboring waters after Iran began seizing oil tankers in the area.
A few weeks after he took over Southern Command Holsey met with the newly confirmed Hegseth on a secure video conference, and received his marching orders.
“You’re either on the team or you’re not,” Hegseth told Holsey, according to notes from a participant. “When you get an order, you move out fast and don’t ask questions.”
After Trump said in a March speech to Congress that he wanted to “reclaim” the Panama Canal, Hegseth ordered Holsey to develop military options to ensure unfettered American access to the strategic waterway, according to two former officials.
Hegseth felt Holsey didn’t move quickly enough to develop the plans, the people said. After media reports about those options, Hegseth was suspicious that Holsey may have been the source of the leaks, one of the people said.
After Holsey assembled plans, the two men were on good terms when they visited Panama together in April, the person said.
Late in the summer, as the military began striking alleged drug boats, Holsey was initially concerned about murky legal authority for the boat strike campaign, according to former officials. With other military units under separate chains of command also involved, including elite special operations units, Holsey objected that parts of the operations fell outside his direct control, they said.
But even before the boat strikes began, Hegseth had lost confidence in Holsey and was looking to replace him, according to a U.S. official.
Since the strikes began in September, the Pentagon has ordered a major military buildup in the region and carried out at least 21 strikes on boats allegedly carrying drugs that have killed more than 80 people.
Holsey, who declined to be interviewed, hasn’t publicly explained his decision to step down. He has continued to issue statements in broad support of the military campaign as his final day in uniform approaches on Dec. 12.
A classified opinion from the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel argues that Trump’s designation of drug cartels as foreign terrorists makes the boats legitimate military targets, asserting that the groups are smuggling drugs to fund deadly and destabilizing actions against the U.S. and its allies, according to lawmakers and others who have read it.
It also asserts that U.S. military personnel involved in the strikes are acting lawfully and won’t be subject to future prosecution, according to people who have read it.
In addition to Holsey, Col. Paul Meagher, the command’s top lawyer, known as a judge advocate general, was initially concerned about the ramifications for U.S. servicemembers, because targeting the alleged drug boats stretched the boundaries of the legal definition of combatants engaging in military hostilities, according to a third U.S. official and a former senior U.S. official.
Meagher didn’t respond to requests for comment about his concerns, which were previously reported by NBC News.
Tensions between Holsey and Hegseth led to a confrontation at the Pentagon in early October. Air Force Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, was also at the meeting, the former officials said.
Hegseth offered no hint of the friction between the two men in an Oct. 16 post on X announcing Holsey’s departure. He said the admiral “has exemplified the highest standards of naval leadership.”
Holsey said he would step down in a separate statement that day that didn’t mention the boat strikes.
“Never before in my over 20 years on the committee can I recall seeing a combatant commander leave their post this early and amid such turmoil,” Rep. Adam Smith (D., Wash.), the top Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said last month.
In a goodbye message to sailors and Marines aboard the amphibious assault ship USS Iwo Jima deployed to the Caribbean, Holsey exhorted them to “sail strong, be bold, and strike. Southcom out.”
While he was there, Hegseth announced yet another attack on a vessel, killing two people.
Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com, Vera Bergengruen at vera.bergengruen@wsj.com and Alexander Ward at alex.ward@wsj.com
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Appeared in the December 4, 2025, print edition as 'Hegseth Ousted Admiral After Clash Over Boat Strikes'.