The sudden and unexplained departure of Navy Secretary John Phelan, appointed by Trump last year, has left observers baffled and outraged, especially as war with Iran drags on with dueling naval blockades.
"We’re in the middle of a pretty important naval blockade standoff with a country we’ve threatened to destroy, so it seems like a weird time for the Secretary of the Navy to abruptly depart," wrote journalist Sarah Longwell on X. "And by 'weird' I mean, WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?"
Journalist John Collins echoed the feeling, posting, "What the [expletive] is going on?"
Writer Charlotte Clymer joked that "the Strait of Hormuz is closed, but the Pentagon unemployment line is open."
Journalist Isaac Saul criticized Phelan for having "zero naval experience or military experience of any kind," in a post on X. "He was a businessman and donor to the Trump campaign, who bizarrely got tapped to be Sec of Navy...the appointment was bad. the timing of this was worse. This is inexcusable stuff."
Some floated rumors that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth forced Phelan out.
Guardian White House correspondent Hugo Lowell wrote that "people familiar with the dynamics tell me Phelan had an increasingly rocky relationship with Pete Hegseth, and senior members of his front office at the Pentagon, who openly appeared to prefer Hung Cao," who was Phelan's undersecretary and will now replace him.
Others turned their attention towards Cao. The X account Right Wing Watch dug up a 2023 interview from when Hung Cao ran for U.S. Senate in Virginia. In the interview, Cao talked about a place in Monterey, California, being taken over by "witchcraft and the wiccan community."
"So, the guy who thinks that witches have taken over California is now the acting secretary of the Navy?" Right Wing Watch rhetorically asked on X. "Super."