John Ullyot, the Pentagon’s top spokesman for the first two months of Donald Trump’s administration, has resigned his position.
Ullyot had been at the center of the scandal surrounding the removal of baseball great Jackie Robinson’s biography from the Department of Defense’s website.
“I made clear to Secretary [Pete] Hegseth before the inauguration that I was not interested in being number two to anyone in public affairs,” Ullyot told Politico in a statement on Wednesday.
“Last month, as that time approached, the Secretary and I talked and could not come to an agreement on another good fit for me at DOD.
“So I informed him today that I will be leaving at the end of this week.”
Ullyot, 56, said that he had initially consented to take on the role of press secretary on an acting basis but had been sidelined after being replaced by combat veteran and former congressional candidate Sean Parnell in February. After that, he was unable to agree on a new permanent position.
After stepping aside and moving into a “special projects” role, Ullyot attracted unwelcome attention in March by defending the Pentagon’s controversial decision to remove a webpage recounting the U.S. Army career of Robinson, the first Black man to play in Major League Baseball.
A Hall of Famer, Robinson broke baseball’s racial barrier when he made his debut for the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.
Asked about ESPN’s removal of the tribute page, Ullyot issued a statement declaring, “DEI is dead at the Defense Department.”
The administration praised the “rapid compliance” with its request that it remove articles on Robinson, the Navajo Code Talkers, and Native American Marine Ira Hayes, who helped plant the Stars-and-Stripes on Iwo Jima during the Second World War.
Uproar over the comments forced him to quickly issue an updated release reading: “Everyone at the Defense Department loves Jackie Robinson, as well as the Navajo Code Talkers, the Tuskegee airmen, the Marines at Iwo Jima and so many others – we salute them for their strong and in many cases heroic service to our country, full stop.
“We do not view or highlight them through the prism of immutable characteristics, such as race, ethnicity, or sex. We do so only by recognizing their patriotism and dedication to the warfighting mission, like every other American who has worn the uniform.”
Ullyot was also responsible for the recent revamping of the department’s press shop, which saw workspaces denied to well-established but “mainstream” publications and assigned to conservative outlets like Breitbart and One America News Network instead.
A Marine Corps veteran himself, Ullyot played a senior communications role in Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He then served as head of communications at the National Security Council during his first administration and as assistant secretary of public affairs at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
His departure comes amid a disastrous week for the Pentagon, which has seen three staff members placed on administrative leave amid an investigation into press leaks.
Hegseth and his team are also still reeling from last month’s “Signalgate” furore, in which Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg was accidentally added to a group chat in which top security officials discussed a bombing raid on Houthi rebels in Yemen.
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