Did Trump refuse to promote women in army? Pentagon delayed nominations fearing he'd replace them with White men
On International Women's Day, President Joe Biden nominated two women, Air Force General Jacqueline Van Ovost and Army Lieutenant General Laura Richardson, to lead four-star commands. However, earlier reports suggest that the women may have been nominated during the administration of the previous president, Donald Trump, but were delayed because Pentagon officials were worried about his reaction.
As Biden nominated Van Ovost and Richardson, he said, "I’d like to spend just a few minutes today making sure that America knows who General Van Ovost is and Lieutenant General Richardson is. They’re aviators. Both learned to fly planes before they were old enough to drive a car. "
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Biden also said, "Neither of these incredible generals is resting on her laurels or on her stars. They’re using their voices and actively working to change policies in the military to make it easier and safer for more women not just to join the military, but to stay in the military and to thrive."
In February 2021, The New York Times had reported that Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley and the then-Defense Secretary Mark Esper worried that if they mentioned either Richardson or Van Ovost, the Trump White House would replace them with their own candidates before leaving office.
Milley and Esper also worried that candidates besides white men nominated to positions normally held by white men "might run into turmoil once their nominations got to the White House." As such, Milley and Esper delayed the generals' nominations until after the November presidential elections in hopes that the candidates would have a better chance of being considered under the Biden administration, according to The New York Times. They stuck to the plan even after Trump fired Esper six days after the 2020 presidential elections.
Esper told The New York Times, “They were chosen because they were the best officers for the jobs, and I didn’t want their promotions derailed because someone in the Trump White House saw that I recommended them or thought D.O.D. was playing politics. This was not the case. They were the best qualified. We were doing the right thing."
I want every child to know that this is what vice presidents and generals in the United States Armed Forces look like. pic.twitter.com/y2OFL1z29r
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 9, 2021
When the report was published Lieutenant Colonel Alexander S. Vindman, who left the military last year, argued in the national security blog, Lawfare, that Esper and Milley should have fought it out with Trump, writing, "Upholding good order and discipline within the military does not mean dodging difficult debates with the commander in chief."
However, Esper and Milley argued that Vindman ignored the civil-military crisis between Trump and the senior Pentagon officials, because the former president was furious they stood up to him when he wanted to use active-duty troops to battle Black Lives Matter protesters, according to The New York Times.
Van Ovost is a four-star officer, leading the Air Force's Mobility Command at Scott Air Force Base in Illinois. Out of 43 four-star generals and admirals in the United States military, she is the only woman. Richardson is the three-star commander of the Army component of the Pentagon's Northern Command, based in San Antonio, Texas, which plays an important role in providing military assistance to FEMA's coronavirus vaccination program.