{"id":482,"date":"2026-04-22T21:53:02","date_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/?p=482"},"modified":"2026-04-22T21:53:02","modified_gmt":"2026-04-22T21:53:02","slug":"pentagon-says-navy-secretary-john-phelan-is-leaving-in-latest-departure-of-a-top-defense-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"Pentagon says Navy Secretary John Phelan is leaving, in latest departure of a top defense leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/dims.apnews.com\/dims4\/default\/5ddfaba\/2147483647\/strip\/true\/crop\/3428x2284+0+0\/resize\/980x653!\/quality\/90\/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.apnews.com%2Fd0%2Fdd%2F6208b72449be3046da68e50d4d41%2F072bbbe10cf74ce89c92db86fd0dd111\" width=\"100%\" \/><small>Secretary of the Navy John Phelan speaks, as President Donald Trump listens, at Trump&#8217;s Mar-a-Lago club, Dec. 22, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, file)<\/small><\/p>\n<p>2026-04-22T21:45:21Z<\/p>\n<p>WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Navy\u2019s top civilian official, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, is leaving his job.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement posted to social media, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Phelan was \u201cdeparting the administration, effective immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Navy Undersecretary Hung Cao will become acting secretary of the Navy, Parnell said.<\/p>\n<p>The sudden departure comes just a day after Phelan addressed a large crowd of sailors and industry professionals at the Navy\u2019s annual conference in Washington, D.C., and spoke with reporters on his ongoing agenda.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of the Navy John Phelan speaks, as President Donald Trump listens, at Trump&#8217;s Mar-a-Lago club, Dec. 22, 2025, in Palm Beach, Fla. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon, file) 2026-04-22T21:45:21Z WASHINGTON (AP) \u2014 The Pentagon announced Wednesday that the Navy\u2019s top civilian official, Secretary of the Navy John Phelan, is leaving his job. In a statement posted&hellip;&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","neve_meta_reading_time":"","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-482","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uscnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}