Judging Freedom - Chief Dennis Fritz: Why Fire Generals and Admirals?

Episode Date: February 27, 2025

Chief Dennis Fritz: Why Fire Generals and Admirals?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Thank you. Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Thursday, February 27th, 2025. Chief Sergeant Major Dennis Fritz joins us now. Chief Fritz, always a pleasure, my dear friend. Thanks for having me back, Judge. I love your book, Deadly Betrayal. Chris will put a full screen up. There it is. If anybody is interested in reading the truth from the military perspective of the awful things that happened in the George W. Bush administration. There it is by our fearless colleague today. Chief, I want to start by asking you directly about the firing of General Brown, the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Was there any valid military purpose of which you are aware for that firing?

Well, Judge, what a way to start off. What a great question. Absolutely not. And I don't want to hear this, and I hate to be candid with you, this bull about serving at the pleasure of the president. Yeah, we know that. Most cabinet members do. But the military, by history, we've always been apolitical. We've I will tell you, as you've heard me say before, I can give you facts, assumptions, and opinions. But let me give you a fact. This man is truly qualified for the job. Even as a young officer, as a captain, he was an aide to the chief of staff of the Air Force.

He went on to be an instructor at our fighter weapons school. He was so good, he went on to be the commander, the commandant of that fighter weapons school. He was so good, he went on to be the commander, the commandant of that fighter weapons school. He's had every major joint assignment. He's been the chief of staff of a service. And oh, by the way, as the chief of staff of that service, he was a member of the joint chiefs of staff. By Title X, we have what's called Title X, United States Code, and then we have a DOD director, 5100.1, and it lists the qualifications of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And he met all of those. So he was appointed the chief of staff of the Air Force by President Donald Trump and then promoted to the chair, correct me if I'm wrong, Chief, the chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff by President Joe Biden. You're exactly right. And let me just say this, Judge, and when he was appointed as the Chief of Staff by President Trump, he was confirmed by the Senate 98 to 0, 98 to 0. And then when he was selected by a different administration, as I stated before, to be, well, I'm sorry, yeah, chief of staff by the Trump administration, and then be the chairman by the Biden administration, crossing over to two different administrations and parties. Well, 83 to 11 by the Senate, he was confirmed. And so that tells you what our Senate and their consent and consulting portion of our government, they agreed that this man was qualified. Now, we have to ask ourselves, Judge, why was he fired? Now, let me just mention this too, Judge. This impacts not only our national security, but it impacts

the military as a whole. Let me just mention this for a moment. When I say our national security, here it is, you've taken a qualified man out of the position that none of us know why. I can only speculate, which I'll mention later. But you think about this. He's bringing an individual, which I will say off the street, a recently retired Lieutenant General who had not even made four stars, had not been a combatant commander or chief of staff of a service, nor had been a member of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. You bring him in without that experience that currently Chairman Brown had. And now, not only that, when I talk about the morale of the force, remember this, admirals and generals have feelings too. So you have members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff currently right now. You have other combatant commanders right now, and they're

seeing that someone that's been recently retired is coming in to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff without the qualifications. Because, oh, by the way, in order for him to become the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, President Trump has to offer some waivers. Now, here's what's scary about that. What's scary about that, President Trump himself said, well, I'm in love with this guy. This guy told me as I was making a tour of Iraq that he loves me. He'll do anything for me. He'll die for me. And illegally, he allegedly put on a mega hat to show Trump how much he supported him. Is that the reason why we're going to appoint him as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff? What does the Joint Chiefs of Staff do? What does the chairman do? Does the chairman run the military, run the Pentagon, or just is the senior advisor to the president?

That's a good question, Judge, because a lot of folks think that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the commander, if you will, of the services. Well, he really does not have any command authority. What he does, he's the senior advisor to the president, the secretary of defense, and the National Security Council. We're here advised that we give them the best advice on foreign affairs when it comes to the military. Does the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff command troops? No, that's what I say. He does not have any command authority. Does the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff spend money or direct the Pentagon budget? They have a say. Once again, they provide advice. The service chiefs provide their needs in the

budget. The service chiefs who are part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The service chiefs provide their needs in the budget, the service chiefs who are part of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The Joint Chiefs of Staff consists of the service chiefs, the National Guard commander, and a vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Does the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff audit the Pentagon? No, that is up to the civilian organization within the Pentagon, in particular. The reason I'm asking you these questions, because Caroline Leavitt, lover or not, the president's chief spokesperson, had some very unusual reasons that she stated for the firing for General Brown. I'm going to play them now and ask you if any of these make sense. By the way,

before we started the interview, you told me to ask you, what are you mad about? I think I may have asked it already. But anyway, we'll get to that in a minute if I fail to. Watch this, Chief. Chris, cut number three. The president replacing the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General C.Q. Brown Jr. What was the reason for the president naming a replacement for General Brown? And then I'll follow up with another personnel announcement that's been made over the last few days. He thinks he's doing a bad job and it's time for a shakeup at the Pentagon. They failed seven audits in a row. The trust in our United States military amongst the war fighters is low.

The President is shaking up the Pentagon and the Department of Defense, of course, with Secretary Hegseth leading, and he has the right to do that. It's actually quite common from administration to administration to do such a thing. The President, when he swore him in as the chief of staff for the Air Force, called him a great man and a great gentleman. Does he distance himself from the remarks that he made back in August of 2020? I think replacing him speaks for itself. Does any of that, except for the statement that the president has the right to fire. Did any of that that she articulated make sense to you? Could the failure of audits even conceivably be blamed on the chair of the

Joint Chiefs of Staff, even though many of those audits about which she complained occurred before he was the chief? Judge, I want to be as blunt as I can with you on this. And I hate to say this, but it's an input to give their advice about the budget. But the budget is the responsibility of the Secretary of Defense and the chiefs of the services, along with the Secretary of the Services. But the chairman has nothing to do with the budget, only providing advice. But he or she is not responsible for the budget. Why do you think he was fired? Is it because this MAGA hat wearing retired Lieutenant General just appealed to Donald Trump? Judge, I'm going to give you a fact and then I'm going to give you a strong opinion. And this is my opinion. As you alluded to and said earlier, he was appointed as chief of staff of the Air Force by President Trump. He does so well because of his experience

in Indochina when he was commander of Pacific Air Forces. He's been assigned as a general officer to the staff of headquarters European Air Forces. He's been a part as a deputy commander in the Middle East as part of CENTCOM. And he went on to be nominated by President Biden to be the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. As I mentioned to you before, he met all the qualifications of Title 10 to be the chairman. Now, why was he fired? This is my opinion, but I have some facts to follow up with that. You have a secretary of defense during interviews, and maybe even in his book.

I know he mentioned in his book about the chief of naval operations, which happened to be a female. He stated that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be fired. Should be fired. Well, guess what? Only a month into the administration, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was fired based on lies, as you showed the clip of the spokesperson for the White House. So why was he fired? I had to think about this for a moment. He supported so-called DEI, for those that don't understand that diversity, equity, and inclusion. And he needed to be fired because of that. Well, I got to ask myself a question about that. As I stated to you, and I went through it, I went through quickly his resume, how qualified he is. He's probably the

most qualified person or was, now I have to say because he's been fired, but he was probably the most qualified person in the military to have the position of chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to provide recommendations, consultant, and counseling and advice to the president, the SecDef, and the National Security Council. But he was fired allegedly because of the fact of his support of DEI. Now, let me just ask that as a personal, as a Black man, now I have to hit home with that, as a Black man, if I look at a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who have all the qualifications in the world to have that position, and then all of a sudden, he was fired based on lies, and then you have a current secretary of defense saying, well, he supported DEI.

Well, I got to ask myself a question. If he meets all the qualification and yet he was fired, huh? What is DEI all about? What difference would it make if he supported DEI? As the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he doesn't hire and fire or tell people who to hire, fire, and promote, does he? No, but not only, well, in some case, on his staff, well, hold on, Judge. How about this? Okay, as I stated, the military, we cross over to all the parties, whether it be Democrat or Republican or independent. Okay. If they didn't agree with that,

that being the current secretary of defense and the president, you change the policies. And then we in the military, we are by law, we follow the policies and the directives of the current administration and our commander in chief, long as they are legal and ethical. If we can't do that, then we resign. And there's nothing to say that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff was not willing to follow the guidance, directors, and the new policies of the current administration. As I'll state it again, because we are apolitical in the military,

but now the current administration has politicized the military, bringing in loyalists. And let me just mention this, Judge. And like I said, I just have so much on my mind. We better be careful. This is internationally and here locally and domestically. One of the biggest things I'm worried about as well is, is there a self-coup in the making? Though President Trump was elected legally by a vote of the American people, but now, as you, being a judge, you know he now has loyalists in the Justice Department, he has loyalists in the FBI, and now we're literally doing a purge of the military. Now, listen, we talked about C.Q. Brown as being the chairman, the chief of naval operations who was fired, which I think D.I.

She happened to be a female. It is about racism and and non-feminist. I don't know. But let me just say this. We cannot forget they have fired or going to fire the senior judge advocates, generals of the services. Why are they doing that? We're purging the military. One- Let me just stop you for a second. These are the military's lawyers. The senior lawyers of each service. Right. Why is he firing them? Well, Judge, as I stated earlier, are we setting ourselves up for a takeover or a coup? Why do I say that? Because, first of all, those lawyers, they provide advice to the services and the Secretary of Defense. And are we setting ourselves up for war crimes?

Are we setting ourselves up for, well, Trump was very interested in, can we turn our military on our American people? He was told no. Are we purging to find those judges that will find a loophole within our uniform code of military justice to allow him to do that? So now he has a justice just started in our military. When Pete Hegseth was asked, I don't remember the senator that asked him, a female senator, if Donald Trump ordered him to turn the military on civilians, would he do it? He refused to give an answer. Right. And we wrote a book while he was one of my colleagues at Fox. And in that book said the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be fired, but he blamed on General Brown things that General Brown had nothing to do with. Here's Senator Eric Schmidt.

This is very interesting. He's questioning General Brown at his confirmation hearing to become the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. So at this point, he already is the Chief of Staff of the Air Force. He already has four stars. Senator Schmidt was praiseworthy of General Brown, but also critical of the military. Senator Schmidt ended up voting in favor of the confirmation. But here's 60 seconds of what Senator Schmidt had to say to General Brown's face, cut number 16. But we have in a memo signed by you

that you think right now there are too many white officers. And this is a blanket statement. And so I could go down the line of questioning of which of the 5,400 white officers that we have, too many should be fired. Because that is the actual impact of all this. I agree with you. Your story about wanting to be the best pilot in the Air Force, regardless of race, that is what the military is supposed to be. It's this great meritocracy. It's why there's uniforms and haircuts. This administration has infused abortion politics into our military, COVID politics into our military, DEI politics into our military.

And it is a cancer. DEI is a ideology based in cultural Marxism. And somehow, some way, we ended up in a place where a general in the Air Force is advocating for racial quotas, whether it be by applicants or the number of officers or maybe the total unit. And I just think that's wrong. Senator ended up voting in favor of the confirmation. Did he know what he was talking about when he said General Brown said there's too many white officers in the military? Did he know what he was talking about when he said General Brown said there's too many white officers in the military? Did General Brown actually say that? I don't know if he said that, but he did have a concern about that. If you look at General Brown's history, he will tell you that a lot of times as a pilot and officer, he was the only one in the room that was black. And he said to himself,

there have to be more qualified blacks than me that can serve our United States Air Force. And judge, whether you like it or not, that's why you have to look at, okay, are we having equity? Are we looking at blacks that want to serve and be pilots in our United States Air Force? So don't look at it that he said, but I don't know if he said that or maybe he played with his words, but I can tell you, he feels strongly about, as well as I do, that if you're qualified, you should have representation in our military. Now, let me just say again, DEI, I'm going to just give you the classic example. As I stated before, and there's many that will concur with me.

General Brown was the most qualified man to serve as our chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. But yet he was fired because of lies, because of the fact you have a secretary of defense that said he supported DEI, which was the policy of an administration. And all those things that were just administered by the senator, those were the policy of an administration at the time, the Biden administration. So when Senator Schmidt was going on about abortion, COVID, and DEI, these are nothing that the generals would articulate. This is what they were told to do by their bosses in the administration, whether it's the president or the secretary of defense himself at the time, a former four-star general. Judge, you're exactly right. As I stated before, the chairman, he provides recommendations, he provides consultant, and he provides advice. But our civilian leadership make the decisions, make the policy, and we in the military, we follow that. And if we can't

follow it, we resign, retire, or separate. Now, what happens to a four-star general when he's fired? Does he just leave the job of chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and take another job as a general, or does he retire and leave the military? Yeah, in most cases, as a four-star general, you will retire. There have been cases where you could go on to another position, but that's rare, because usually when a four-star general or any general officer is fired, they're fired for cause. That's one example. What debt, and I ask your audience this, they do fired for cause. That's one example. What did,

and I ask your audience this, they do the checking. We all do critical thinking nowadays. Do the checking. Why was he fired? Well, the reasons given by Carolyn Leavitt make no sense. They make no sense and they were a lie. I'll take it that boldly. That was a lie. Chief, did I touch on what you're mad about? Let me give you two things. I'm so glad you gave me the opportunity because I know we're running out of time. Let's talk about this first. Judge Trump Gaza.

That is very scary and threatening. Trump Gaza. And then you do an AI video with yourself, President Trump, and the most hated man, Bibi Netanyahu, in the Arab and Muslim world, and you're relaxing on a beach. All right. I don't want to make you more aggravated than you are, but we have to run this clip of which you speak. It's only about 30 seconds long. Watch this from Trump's Truth Social. Trump Gaza shining bright. Golden future, a brand new life. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza, number one.

Trump Gaza shining bright. Golden future, a brand new life. Feast and dance, the deal is done. Trump Gaza, number one. Judge, how sad that is. Israel destroyed, demolished that part of the world with our help, with our funding, with our providing of the weapons and provided diplomatic cover. Israel did that and we're complicit in doing that. And now, as you show that, now we want to make it into a lovely place for millionaires to go to

as we've killed 40,000 innocent women and children and some men. And this is what the president of the United States see in the Palestinian people. Now, let me just mention while I'm mad about this also. He's already saying, BBS, that he's going to control a large portion of Syria. He hasn't left Lebanon yet. And now we're going to displace all the Palestinians so we can make that beautiful scene that you just mentioned at the expense of the Palestinian people. Well, I must tell you, I mentioned this to a panel I was on to the audience. And, Judge, one of the things I want to share with your audience is that I see no end and no peace in the Middle East until there's all-out war. Because he's already saying that he's not going to move out of the Philadelphia border with Egypt. And I can tell you, Egypt has a strong and powerful military.

They have a strong and powerful military and they're not going to be able to hold back any longer. You're going to have Iran who have ballistic missiles that are accurate. We already know that. You're going to have Iraq that's drawn into it. So I'm just telling you right now, this is my opinion and my assumption, but I feel strongly about it. We will never have peace in the Middle East until there's an all out war. And it's coming. It's coming. book to keep us out of Iran because that book, Deadly Betrayal, The Truth of Why We Invaded Iraq was the start of what's happening now. We invaded Iraq on behalf of Israel because we didn't want them to do what they just did, demolish the Gaza Strip. They did that. And now we are complicit. Now, here's what I want to tell you. The last thing, deadly betrayal, 4,500 military men and women were killed on behalf of Israel on a WMD lie. Now, for those of us in the United States, we're familiar with Doge, led by Musk, which I call a contractor directing government officials, a contractor, by the way, were doing their purge and getting rid of civilian government employees.

Many of those employees that they fired indiscriminately were veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan. They sacrificed, almost gave their life. And we thank them for their service by saying, oh, by the way, you are fired. Yet another betrayal of our United States men and women armed forces. Wow. Well, Chief, this has been very enlightening. I hope the next time you're angry, you will come back to us again. Chief, Chief, Chief Fritz, you got to control your anger, but I think it's worth being angered about, Judge. Well, it's a righteous indignation, and I praise you for it. I'm happy to give you this forum in which to display it.

You're a great man, Chief, who truly understands the excesses of government that have been forced upon the military, and I thank you for your personal courage and for your intellect. You're always welcome here, my friend. Once again, thanks for having me, Judge. Of course. Thank you, Chief. Coming up tomorrow, Friday at nine in the morning, Aaron Maté at four in the afternoon, the Intelligence Community Roundtable with Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom. Thank you.