Army Secretary Dan Driscoll plans to leave the Pentagon around the end of 2026 after a prolonged power struggle with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, a departure that would cap one of the most turbulent stretches in recent Army leadership.

Driscoll has told associates he views 23 to 24 months as the effective lifespan of an Army secretary in the Trump administration, and he is now looking to step down on roughly that timeline. A former White House official and two other sources familiar with the discussions confirmed his expected exit to The Hill, which reported the news Friday evening. The Wall Street Journal had earlier reported on Driscoll's anticipated departure.

Driscoll's spokesperson declined to comment. But the picture that emerges from multiple sources is not one of a secretary who burned out quietly. It is a story of two strong-willed Trump appointees, Driscoll and Hegseth, clashing over personnel, policy turf, and the direction of the Army at a moment when the service branch can least afford internal chaos.

Hegseth removed Driscoll's closest military partner without warning

The most visible flashpoint came in early April, when Hegseth forced the retirement of Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George. Hegseth called George directly and told him it was "time for a leadership change in the Army," Fox News reported. George, a Biden-era nominee confirmed by the Senate in 2023, had been expected to serve through 2027.

The move blindsided Driscoll's office. A U.S. official told the Washington Examiner that Hegseth's decision came as a surprise to the Army secretary. Driscoll did not hide his feelings. He drove straight to George's home afterward.

"When we drove back from North Carolina, I drove straight to General George's house. We walked right in, and we all gave him a hug."

That was Driscoll speaking publicly about the man Hegseth had just removed. The gesture was personal, but it also sent a clear signal: Driscoll considered George an ally, not a problem.

George was not the only general swept out. Hegseth also fired Gen. David Hodne and Maj. Gen. William Green Jr. in what sources described as a broader effort to reshape Pentagon leadership. President Trump and Hegseth then picked Gen. Christopher LaNeve, a former military aide to Hegseth, to serve as the Army's acting chief of staff.

LaNeve has met with senators in recent months, but his confirmation remains uncertain. Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have raised objections, though the specific concerns have not been made public.

Driscoll and George built a reform agenda Hegseth then disrupted

Before George's ouster, Driscoll and the general had built a close working relationship and co-launched the Army Transformation Initiative. The program aimed to "deliver critical warfighting capabilities, optimize our force structure and eliminate waste and obsolete programs." Its fields of focus included integrating drones and artificial intelligence into Army formations.

Driscoll, a former venture capitalist, pushed the service branch to improve living conditions for troops, modernize equipment, and learn from Ukrainian forces about how to use commercial technology in modern warfare. One source familiar with the discussions said Driscoll had been "aggressive" in getting buy-in from general officers to deliver on these efforts, given his limited time in the role.

That urgency made sense. If Driscoll always viewed his tenure as a 23-to-24-month window, every month lost to bureaucratic infighting was a month lost on reform. Hegseth's decision to remove George, and later, the Army's plan to phase out a battalion within the 173rd Airborne Brigade that had been studying lessons from overseas wars, including the use of unmanned systems in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, cut directly against the modernization agenda Driscoll and George had set in motion.

Gen. Chris Donahue, the former commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, had backed that same unit's work. The Army's decision to wind it down, reported by The Hill on Thursday, raised fresh questions about whether the service branch would sustain the kind of battlefield innovation Driscoll championed.

Sources point to insecurity, not performance, as the driver

An unnamed administration official offered a blunt assessment of what was fueling the friction. Hegseth's personnel moves, the official said, were not driven by performance concerns but by fear of being replaced, anxiety that intensified after the "Signalgate" scandal earlier in the administration.

"This is all driven by the insecurity and paranoia that Pete has developed since Signalgate. Unfortunately, it is stoked by some of his closest aides who should be trying to calm the waters."

A source close to the Trump administration told the New York Post that Hegseth saw Driscoll as "one of the top contenders, or a natural contender, to succeed him", and acted accordingly. Driscoll's close friendship with Vice President Vance, dating to their time together at Yale Law School, made him a figure Hegseth could not simply push aside. Vance has reportedly blocked Hegseth from firing Driscoll directly.

That dynamic, a Defense Secretary who could purge the generals around a rival but not the rival himself, helps explain why Driscoll's departure looks voluntary on the surface but carries the fingerprints of a sustained pressure campaign. Hegseth's spokesman, Sean Parnell, has even been floated as a potential replacement for Driscoll if the Army secretary were ultimately removed.

Meanwhile, Hegseth has faced political pressure of his own. Senate Republicans have moved to cut his travel budget over transparency failures at the Pentagon, a sign that the Defense Secretary's standing on Capitol Hill is not as secure as his aggressive personnel moves might suggest.

Bipartisan lawmakers praised the general Hegseth fired

George's removal drew criticism from Republican lawmakers, a notable detail, given that Hegseth serves a Republican president. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Rep. Tom Cole called George's departure "a real loss." Rep. Ken Calvert of California, also a Republican, said George "should be congratulated on the work he did for this country."

Democratic lawmakers joined the praise during budget and readiness hearings. The bipartisan reaction underscored that George's ouster was not a case of a general who had lost confidence across the political spectrum. It was a decision made by one man, Hegseth, over the objections of members from his own party.

Driscoll himself was confirmed by the Senate on February 25 of last year in a 66-to-28 vote, a margin that reflected broad bipartisan support. He entered the Pentagon with goodwill from both sides of the aisle and a mandate to modernize. He will leave, if the timeline holds, having spent much of his tenure navigating a turf conflict he did not seek.

The friction between the two officials also extended to officer promotions, which at one point drew White House attention. And Hegseth's broader reshaping of the military, from forced retirements to unconventional readiness directives, has generated controversy well beyond the Army.

Trump tapped Driscoll for Ukraine talks, and the rift deepened

Tensions flared further late last year when President Trump picked Driscoll, not Hegseth, to negotiate with Ukrainian officials in hopes of ending the Russia-Ukraine war. The assignment elevated Driscoll's profile and placed him in a diplomatic lane that might have been expected to run through the Defense Secretary's office.

The details of Driscoll's role in those negotiations and their outcome remain unclear. But the move itself signaled that the White House trusted Driscoll with high-stakes diplomacy, a vote of confidence that, by multiple accounts, only deepened Hegseth's concern about his own standing.

Several questions remain unanswered. Has Driscoll formally communicated his departure plans to the White House, or is this based solely on private discussions? Will the Army Transformation Initiative survive his exit? And will the phase-out of the 173rd Airborne Brigade's lessons-learned unit leave the Army less prepared to fight the kind of drone-heavy, technology-driven conflicts already playing out in Ukraine?

When a secretary who came in with bipartisan support, a clear reform agenda, and the trust of a four-star general ends up heading for the door after less than two years, the problem is not the secretary. It is the institution that made his work impossible.