For the second time, the killing of George Floyd by a police officer has brought about a breakage between President Trump and the American military’s most senior leader.
In abruptly firing Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Friday night purge at the Pentagon, Mr. Trump did not publicly give a reason. In fact, the four-star fighter pilot with 40 years of service was at the border tending to one of the president’s highest priorities when he was dismissed.
But privately, Trump advisers point to a video that General Brown recorded in the furious days after George Floyd, a Black man, was killed by a police officer in May 2020, an act that sparked a social justice movement. In the four-minute video, General Brown reflected on his experiences as an African American pilot in the Air Force.
The killing of Mr. Floyd also blew up the relationship between Mr. Trump and General Brown’s predecessor, Gen. Mark A. Milley.
Days after Mr. Floyd’s death, General Milley, wearing his Army fatigues, accompanied Mr. Trump in a walk across Lafayette Square near the White House for a photo op after an aggressive clearing of a peaceful demonstration. General Milley was widely criticized for allowing Mr. Trump to drag him into politics.
General Milley apologized publicly, saying, “I should not have been there.”
Mr. Trump was furious. “Why’d you do that?” he asked General Milley, according to Trump officials at the time.
The two were already at odds over Mr. Trump’s desire to use the Insurrection Act to deploy active duty troops to rein in the protesters, a move that General Milley and then Defense Secretary Mark Esper had vehemently opposed.
Mr. Trump would never trust either man again.
The president would later fire Mr. Esper (by tweet). As for General Milley, Mr. Trump would eventually suggest he should be put to death.
And after Mr. Trump returned to power, their portraits were removed from the walls of the Pentagon.
It is unclear whether General Brown will get a portrait of his one year and four months as the Joint Chiefs chairman. Mr. Trump has not publicly criticized General Brown, whom he is seeking to replace with the retired three-star Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, another fighter pilot.
Pete Hegseth, Mr. Trump’s new defense secretary, previously questioned whether General Brown was selected as the Joint Chiefs chairman because he was Black and said on a podcast in November that he should be fired over the military’s diversity efforts.
In his 2024 book “The War on Warriors,” Mr. Hegseth wrote of the general’s promotion: “Was it because of his skin color? Or his skill? We’ll never know, but always doubt — which on its face seems unfair to C.Q. But since he has made the race card one of his biggest calling cards, it doesn’t really much matter.”
General Brown electrified the military rank and file on June 4, 2020, when as Pacific Air Forces commander, he released his four-minute video, which he called, simply, “What I’m thinking about.”
On the streets of some cities, Black Lives Matter protests were raging over the killing of Mr. Floyd by Derek Chauvin, a white police officer who knelt on Mr. Floyd’s neck while Mr. Floyd was handcuffed and lay dying facedown.
General Brown would later say in an interview that one of his two sons asked him: “What is Pacific Air Forces going to say?” As the commander of Pacific Air Forces, General Brown said he knew that was code for “Dad, what are you going to say?”
Against a dark background, a solemn General Brown, clad in fatigues, stared into the camera, and said this: “As the commander of Pacific Air Forces, and a senior leader in our Air Force, and an African American, many of you may be wondering what I’m thinking about the current events surrounding the tragic death of George Floyd,” General Brown began. “Here’s what I’m thinking about.”
For four and a half minutes, General Brown would speak, in stark terms, about his life as an African American fighter pilot.
“I’m thinking about how full I am with, with emotion, not just for George Floyd, but the many African Americans that suffered the same fate as George Floyd,” he said, a slight tremor underlying his voice. “I’m thinking about protests in my country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, the equality expressed in our declaration of independence, in the Constitution, that I’ve sworn my adult life to support and defend.”
General Brown spoke of “living in two worlds, both with their own perspectives and views.” He described what those worlds were like for him. He and his sister were the only Black children at his elementary school, he said, and they tried to fit in. In their high school, half of the students were Black and they still tried to fit in.
“I’m thinking about my Air Force career, where I was often the only African American in my squadron, or, as a senior officer, the only African American in the room,” he said.
At the time, about 43 percent of the 1.3 million men and women on active duty were people of color, but nearly all of the people making crucial decisions at the top were white and male. In a photo taken in October of the previous year, Mr. Trump was surrounded by his top four-star generals, a sea of white faces, a portrait of the top commanders who led an otherwise diverse institution.
In his video, General Brown continued: “I’m thinking about wearing the same flight suit, with the same wings on my chest as my peers, and then being questioned by another military member, ‘are you a pilot.’”
He limited his words to his own experience, and reflected on the other world in which he lived, the Black one. “I’m thinking about being a captain at the O Club with my squadron, and being told by other African Americans that I wasn’t Black enough, since I was spending more time with my squadron than with them.”
He spoke of how most of his mentors could not relate to his experience as a Black man. He spoke of wondering whether airmen who have not had similar experiences “don’t see racism as a problem because it doesn’t happen to them, or whether they’re empathetic.”
General Brown finished by talking about the weight he felt as the first African American nominated to be chief of the Air Force. Mr. Trump had nominated him for that position, on Mr. Esper’s recommendation.
General Brown would go on to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in an 83-11 Senate vote. For the first time in its history, the Pentagon was led by two Black men, with Lloyd J. Austin III, Mr. Biden’s defense secretary.
But in Mr. Trump’s eyes, one Trump adviser said on Saturday, there was no coming back for General Brown after he made his video.
After Mr. Trump took office on Jan. 20, General Brown insisted he would carry out the lawful orders of the president, in words similar to his predecessor, General Milley.
He was fired anyway. So was Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first woman to lead the Navy, and Gen. James Slife, the vice chief of staff of the Air Force, who had urged airmen to think about institutional racism after Mr. Floyd’s death.
“By their own words, the president and secretary of defense have signaled that these leaders served the country well and faithfully carried out the missions assigned to them by their political leaders,” said Peter Feaver, a political science professor at Duke University who has studied the military for decades. “The abruptness of the action leaves so many questions hanging and unanswered.”
