What to know about Dan Caine, Trump’s pick to lead Joint Chiefs of Staff
President Trump ousted Air Force Gen. CQ Brown Jr., a President Biden appointee, who served as the U.S. chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Friday.
“I want to thank General Charles ‘CQ’ Brown for his over 40 years of service to our country, including as our current Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,” Trump said in a Friday announcement on Truth Social. “He is a fine gentleman and an outstanding leader, and I wish a great future for him and his family.”
To replace Brown, a four-star pilot, Trump wrote that he is nominating Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine to serve as the next chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
The president lauded Caine as an “accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur and a ‘warfighter’ with significant interagency and special operations experience.”
Caine “embodies the warfighter ethos and is exactly the leader we need to meet the moment. I look forward to working with him,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegeseth said Friday, shortly after Trump’s social media post.
Here’s what we know about Caine
Caine graduated with a bachelor’s degree in economics from the Virginia Military Institute in 1990 and got his master’s degree in air warfare at the American Military University.
The retired lieutenant general, who will need a Senate confirmation, logged more than 2,800 hours in an F-16 fighter aircraft and more than 150 combat flight hours, according to his military biography.
Caine was also a part-time member of the National Guard from 2009 to 2016, along with being a “serial” investor and entrepreneur.
He worked at the CIA from 2021 to 2024 as the associate director for military affairs. Before his time at the CIA, Caine served as the director of special programs at the Department of Defense (DOD) special access program central office at the Pentagon. There, he was the principal staff assistant and advisor to the defense secretary “for all programs protected under special access controls.”
He held several roles while in the Air Force, including as a F-16 pilot, special operations officer, weapons officer and a member of the White House staff, according to his military biography.
Trump met Caine for the first time in 2018. Caine left a strong impression on the then-first-term commander-in-chief, telling him that ISIS could be annihilated in one week.
“Sir, we can have it totally finished in one week,” Trump recounted Caine saying at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).
At the time, Caine told Trump the U.S. was “only hitting them from a temporary base in Syria. 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,” according to Trump.
Trump mentioned Caine during his FII PRIORITY Summit speech earlier this week in Miami, telling the crowd that he is a “real general, not a television general.”
Caine, who got to the rank of lieutenant general in 2021, will be moved up to the rank of general if confirmed by the upper chamber. He would then serve a four-year term. The former fighter pilot has already amassed some support among Senate Republicans.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a Trump ally, said Friday night that he will “gladly help lead the effort to confirm” Caine.
Caine recounted when he was chief of weapons and tactics for the 121st Fighter Squadron at Andrews Air Force Base during the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
“We jumped in the airplanes and started them up. As my plane came to life, the generators came on-line, and the radios were going ballistic,” Caine said in a 2023 reflection that was posted on the CIA website. At the time, he was a CIA senior officer.
“People on the emergency channels were saying, 'Anybody around Washington, D.C. will be shot down.' I remembered thinking to myself, 'Wait. That’s me that will be shooting,'” he added. “The weapons were loaded on my airplane so we'd have the 20-millimeter gun and two heat-seeking missiles. I was airborne for about 7.5-8 hours that day.”
Caine has also worked in the private sector. He is currently a partner at Ribbid Capital, a venture capital firm founded in Silicon Valley and a partner at Shield Capital, according to his LinkedIn. He is also on the board of Voyager Space, a space and defense firm and an advisor for Thrive Capital.
A senior U.S. official, who has worked with Caine for over 10 years, told Reuters that Caine "puts the mission and troops above politics. He is not a political guy.”
Gen. Kenneth F. McKenzie Jr., who was the head of Central Command (CENTCOM) until April 2022, also praised Caine, telling The New York Times that he is an “exceptionally talented officer."
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