Trump’s pick for Joint Chiefs chair Daniel ‘Razin’ Caine set for Senate grilling

President Donald Trump’s nominee to be the U.S.’s top military officer is set to take the hot seat before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday. 

Lt. Gen. Daniel “Razin” Caine was plucked to replace Gen. C.Q. Brown, who Trump relieved of his role as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff last month. It will be Caine’s first highly publicized remarks since the shakeup. After testifying before the committee, he will have to pass a committee vote and then a full Senate vote. 

If confirmed, Caine would serve as a go-to adviser for both Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. 

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Caine first caught the eye of the president years ago, when he was among a group of military leaders who met with Trump in December 2018 at the Al Asad Airbase in Iraq. 

Trump was visiting to deliver a Christmas message and hear from commanders on the ground. There, Caine told Trump they could defeat ISIS quickly with a surge of resources and a lifting of restrictions on engagement – a different message than the president was getting back in Washington. 

“We’re only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria,” Trump said Caine told him. “But if you gave us permission, we could hit them from the back, from the side, from all over – from the base that you’re right on, right now, sir. They won’t know what the hell hit them.” 

Trump had plucked the retired Air Force general from relative obscurity after accusing Brown of pushing a “woke” agenda at the Pentagon. Brown had been behind a 2022 memo laying out diversity goals for the Air Force. 

Caine does not meet the position’s prerequisites, such as being a combatant commander or service chief, and will require a waiver to be confirmed to the position. 

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Caine’s reputation as an aggressive fighter pilot earned him the nickname “Razin Caine.” 

Caine, who flew F-16s, also spent time as the top military liaison to the CIA, an Air National Guard officer and regional airline founder in Texas. He was a White House fellow at the Agriculture Department and a counterterrorism specialist on the White House’s Homeland Security Council.

From 2018-19, he was the deputy commander of Special Operations Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve, which has been fighting the Islamic State since 2014. Little is publicly known about his role in that operation. The role of airstrikes, however, grew during that time, including clandestine ones, and Trump designated airstrike approval to commanders rather than the White House. 

Critics viewed Caine as an unconventional pick who lacked the experience for the job – he had already retired from the military and held the rank of three-star general, not four.

If confirmed, he would be tasked with providing the president with military advice at a time when Trump has toyed with bombing Iran and the Pentagon is shoring up its capabilities to ensure America is capable of winning a hypothetical war with China. 

The Pentagon is also in the midst of a major modernization push to integrate AI across its systems and will soon take up the monumental task of putting a “Golden Dome” over the U.S. homeland. It is currently trying to whittle down its civilian workforce by more than 50,000 people and identify waste in the agency with the largest budget.