This image provided by the U.S. Air Force shows Lt. Gen. Dan Caine.
U.S. Air Force/AP
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U.S. Air Force/AP
President Trump announced he would nominate retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine — a career fighter jet pilot who patrolled the skies above Washington, D.C., during the 9/11 attacks, served in the Middle East during the fight against the Islamic State and then worked at the CIA — to be the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff is the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, as well as the principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense and National Security Council.
Caine was an unusual choice for the top military job and is not well known. Several officials on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told NPR they had to Google his name.
Caine has not served in any of the roles — Joint Chiefs vice chairman, chief of staff for one of the branches of the armed service, or head of a combatant command — that nominees are legally required to have performed in order to be nominated. The president, however, may waive those requirements if he “determines such action is necessary in the national interest.”
The nomination is part of a larger shake-up at the Pentagon.
It follows the firing on Friday night of the previous chairman, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., who was picked by former President Joe Biden in 2023.
Brown was accused of supporting a “woke” agenda by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. In his book The War on Warriors, Hegseth questioned whether Brown, who is Black, got the job because of his race.
In a statement, Hegseth said Brown’s replacement represents “the warfighter ethos” that the country needs right now — later adding that the nation needs leadership that “will focus our military on its core mission of deterring, fighting and winning wars.”
Trump, in his nomination announcement, described Caine as “an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”
The president said Caine was “passed over for promotion” by Biden.
Caine was among the pilots tasked with protecting D.C. on 9/11
Caine served most recently as the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, a position he started in November 2021.
In 1990, Caine was commissioned through an ROTC program at the Virginia Military Institute in Lexington, Va. While on active duty, Caine primarily served as an F-16 fighter pilot, flying more than 150 combat hours, according to his military biography.
On Sept. 11, 2001, he was one of the pilots who protected the skies above Washington following the terrorist attacks. It marked the first time that fighter jets were deployed over the nation’s capital.