'I’d call that a target': Retired admiral sounds alarm over grave Hegseth 'security risk'

With hundreds of admirals and top U.S. military leaders called to Quantico, Virginia by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for a surprise meeting on Tuesday, one retired Navy admiral is sounding the alarm on what he argued was a grave “security risk” posed by the unprecedented meeting.

The gathering is expected to be attended by President Donald Trump alongside other senior Trump administration officials, and was described by Trump as “a very nice meeting talking about how well we’re doing militarily.” For retired admiral James Starvridis, however, the concentration of so many U.S. military leaders could pose a serious safety threat.

“In a moment, we're going to have the commander in chief, the secretary of Defense, we're going to have the chairman of the joint chiefs and 800 admirals and generals,” Stavridis said on CNN Tuesday. “I'd call that a target.”

Starvidis retired from the Navy in 2013, having served for nearly 40 years, and has gone on to publish books, lead the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University as its dean, and was even considered by former presidential candidate Hillary Clinton as her running mate.

And, in Starvidis’ nearly four decades of service, he said he’d never once seen a meeting approaching the scope of the one called by Hegseth, set to kick off Tuesday morning.

“I've certainly never seen one like it in my 40 years. When I was a 4-star admiral, the very senior admirals and generals, I think 20 of us, would come to Washington, typically to have dinner with the commander in chief in the White House, that's fine,” Starvidis said.

“To pull 800 frontline commanders back to Quantico... it's not only the cost, it's the disruption to the operations in the field.”