Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley may have been preemptively pardoned by now former President Joe Biden on Monday, just hours before President Donald Trump took office once more, but that doesn't mean it was all a good day for him. That same day, his portrait was shown gone from the Pentagon hallway, which quickly became a trending topic over X.
The portrait had just been unveiled 10 days before, on January 10. As CNN's Natasha Bertrand posted at the time when the portrait was unveiled, there's a map of Ukraine shown on his desk.
Update: this Milley portrait is no longer up in the Pentagon hallway, just 10 days after it was unveiled… h/t @OrenCNN https://t.co/ji77T3Np6l pic.twitter.com/DdUeEEZ9zR
— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 20, 2025
The White House looks to be remaining tight-lipped. As The Hill reported on Monday about the portrait:
A spokesperson for the Pentagon confirmed the portrait was taken down but deferred comment to the White House.
A spokesperson for the White House national security council declined to comment on why the portrait was taken down.
The portrait, which had just been unveiled on Jan. 10, hung in the Joint Chiefs hallway next to those of other former chairmen.
While Trump picked Milley during his first term in late 2018, the two clashed tremendously. Milley was criticized for how he "not only went around Trump, he put himself ahead of Trump." He also was labeled a "traitor," especially for his actions to do with China, as the then chairman assured China, namely Gen. Li Zuocheng, that he would let him know if the United States was going to launch an attack in the final months of Trump's first term. Former Acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller revealed he did not authorize Milley to contact China.
Milley also gained attention for speaking with then Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on January 8, 2021, not long after the events of January 6. "This morning, I spoke to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley to discuss available precautions for preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike," Pelosi said in a letter that day, as Townhall covered at the time.
He's also infamous for his concern about woke issues when it comes to "white rage" and defending Critical Race Theory. Especially on that front, we're in for a very new era of the second Trump administration, with Trump's pick for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, now expected to be confirmed in the coming days. As we covered last Memorial Day, shortly before it was released, Hegseth's new book, "The War on Warriors: Behind the Betrayal of the Men Who Keep Us Free," has decried "how the military allowed itself to go woke," with Hegseth also speaking about a need to "save" the Pentagon.