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Army Secretary Dan Driscoll has resigned after months of tension with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth

Getting into it: Driscoll submitted his resignation to Trump, who accepted it Monday evening. The trigger was a White House meeting last week where Driscoll took his concerns straight to the president. Four people familiar with the conversation said Driscoll walked Trump through the number of generals and senior officers who had lost their jobs, been sidelined, or been skipped for promotion under Hegseth. The total caught the president off guard, they said. Driscoll argued that the Army has no path to reinventing itself with that many of its leaders gone. Trump said the scale of the losses at the top worried him. Driscoll then told the president he intended to resign.

The Army, with more than 450,000 active-duty soldiers, now has no top civilian leader, no Senate-confirmed chief of staff, and no confirmed leader of its forces in Europe. Gen. Randy George, the chief of staff, was fired without explanation in April. Gen. Christopher Donahue, who ran US Army Europe and Africa, stepped down in June.

Driscoll, who was close to George, told a House Appropriations subcommittee in April that he learned of the firing while his family was vacationing in North Carolina, and he drove to George’s home immediately after. “We walked right in, and we all gave him a hug,” Driscoll said. “There is no person that has more respect for General George and his 42 years of service, his Purple Heart, his wife, Patty, their grandkids, their kids.”

The White House praised Driscoll on his way out. “Secretary Driscoll has been highly effective in advancing President Trump’s agenda to Make America Strong Again at the Department of the Army by providing outstanding leadership during historic military operations, restoring an emphasis on readiness and lethality, assisting with negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, and more,” spokesperson Anna Kelly said. “The United States Army is more powerful than ever thanks to his work alongside the Commander-in-Chief and Secretary of War.”

Hegseth has said nothing publicly about the departure.

This all comes as Gen. Christopher LaNeve, Hegseth’s pick as the Army’s No. 2, has been serving as acting chief and is expected to be nominated to lead the service. A Capitol Hill staffer told The Atlantic that the nomination would likely fail. “We are not going to reward Hegseth for what he did to the Army,” the staffer said.