General who faced off with Fox News hosts retires from Army

An Army general who went viral after clashing with Fox News hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham in 2021 retired from the military branch on Sunday.

Maj. Gen. Patrick Donahoe announced his retirement on Twitter shortly after the new year began, writing, “Elvis has left the building.”

Donahoe had been set to retire in July, but the Army halted his plans after it launched an investigation into his social media activity following his public spats with the Fox News hosts over female soldiers in the military and COVID-19 vaccines.

Instead, he was reassigned as a special assistant to the commanding general of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, pending the Army’s review of his social media posts.

Donahoe told Military.com in a story published Tuesday that there was no disciplinary action taken against him after the Army’s review concluded.

“I retired honorably and without any reprimand or admonishment,” he said.

In March 2021, Donahoe was among a group of senior military leaders who criticized Carlson after the prime-time host complained about the U.S. military attracting more female soldiers into the service.

Carlson said the Pentagon was becoming too “feminine” and making a “mockery of the U.S. military” as China was becoming more “masculine.”

Donahoe, at the time a commander with the Army’s Maneuver of Excellence at Fort Benning, Ga., posted a video on Twitter of him conducting a female soldier enlistment ceremony as “a reminder that @TuckerCarlson couldnt be more wrong.”

Ingraham also attacked Donahoe in July 2021 after he disagreed in a series of exchanges on Twitter with a retired Marine who spoke out against COVID-19 vaccination requirements in the military.

The Fox News host called him “defensive and sensitive” and used the argument to frame a story around the “politicized wokification of our military.”

After the public clashes, the investigation was launched into Donahoe’s social media activity, though the Army did not publicly announce it until September.

Less than a month later, Army Secretary Christine Wormuth warned against top military officers fighting on social media during a conference in Washington, D.C. Wormuth said the Army should be “apolitical” and stay “out of the culture wars.”