Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth suddenly fired a top aide after he upset one of President Donald Trump’s civilian appointees to the military.

Navy chief of staff Jon Harrison was working with Navy Secretary John Phelan to upend the service’s bureaucracy, including stripping the office of the undersecretary—the Navy’s second-highest civilian leader—of much of its power, Politico reported.

But Trump’s nominee for undersecretary, a retired Navy captain and MAGA insider named Hung Cao, “was keeping track of all this while waiting for his confirmation vote,” a defense official told Politico.

Soon after he was confirmed on Oct. 1, he complained to Hegseth’s team. Two days after Cao’s confirmation, on Oct. 3, Hegseth fired Harrison without even telling Phelan until after the fact, according

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