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What to know about Dan Caine, the nation's newly-confirmed top military adviser

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What to know about Dan Caine, the nation's newly-confirmed top military adviser

Dan Caine, now chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testifies during his Senate Armed Services Committee confirmation hearing on April 1.

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Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. John Dan “Razin” Caine is officially the chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff after the Senate confirmed him in the middle of the night.

The 60-25 vote happened just after 2 a.m. on Friday before the Senate adjourned for two weeks.

And it came a little over six weeks after President Trump abruptly fired Caine’s predecessor, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., as part of a larger shakeup at the Pentagon that had many Democrats concerned. Republicans, on the other hand, pushed for Caine to be confirmed quickly.

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“The Chinese Communist Party continues an expansive military buildup, and our adversaries continue to band together against the United States,” Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Wednesday. “President Trump should have the expertise of the highest-ranking military officer in place without any delays.”

Caine’s confirmation makes him the nation’s highest-ranking military officer, principal military adviser to the president, secretary of defense and National Security Council.

Caine is a career fighter jet pilot who patrolled the skies above Washington, D.C., immediately after the 9/11 attacks, served in the Middle East during the fight against the Islamic State and then worked at the CIA.

Despite his 34 years of military experience, Caine had not served in any of the roles legally required to become Joint Chiefs chair. The president, however, can waive those requirements if he “determines such action is necessary in the national interest.”

Caine was not well known before his nomination in February. Several officials on Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, granted anonymity as they were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter, told NPR at the time that they had to Google his name.

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At his confirmation hearing earlier this month, Caine said he hoped to earn senators’ trust “and the trust of the American people.”

“If confirmed, I’ll continue the traditions and standards of my oath of office and my commission as a nonpartisan leader who will always strive to do the right thing,” he said.

Caine’s career spanned the CIA, the National Guard and the Air Force 

Caine served most recently as the associate director for military affairs at the CIA, a position he held from November 2021 until his retirement in December 2024. 

Caine had to be reinstated to active service and promoted to four-star general to become chair, the Washington Post reports. 

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.

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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.

“I remember telling the wingman that I was going to fly with that day, ‘Don’t shoot anybody. I’ll make the decision,’ because I was very mindful that if we made a mistake or if we got it wrong or if we missed somebody and we did not shoot, the consequences of that could be catastrophic,” he said in a 2023 CIA video. “Not only for the people on the ground, but for the country as a whole.”

From 2009 to 2016, Caine also served in the National Guard. He was deputy commander in the U.S. campaign against ISIS in Iraq and Syria between May 2018 and September 2019, according to his military biography.

The biography also describes him as a “serial entrepreneur and investor.”

According to his LinkedIn profile, Caine serves on the advisory board of several venture capital firms, as well as the defense and space exploration company Voyager.

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Trump has been talking up Caine since at least 2019

In 2019, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump shared his first meeting with Caine in Iraq, where the general introduced himself by his nickname “Razin.”

“‘Raisin, like the fruit?’ He goes, ‘Yes, sir, Razin.’ ‘What’s your last name?’ ‘Caine. Razin Caine.’ I said, ‘You got to be kidding me,’ ” Trump recalled.

According to Trump, the general suggested the Islamic State could be defeated in a week. “One week? I was told two years,” Trump said he asked. Caine explained that the issue was that his orders come from D.C. rather than being informed by the field.

“You’re the first one to ask us our opinion,” Caine told Trump, as the president recalled. “So I went back and I said, ‘I’m going to get back to you soon, Razin. I think you’re great,’” Trump said. “I like you, Razin Caine.”

Trump referred to this encounter in Iraq again at last year’s CPAC. But in this retelling, Caine asserted that the Islamic State could be defeated in four weeks, not one.

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Trump then recalled the general saying, “‘I love you, sir. I think you’re great, sir. I’ll kill for you, sir.’ “

Some U.S. officials who were not authorized to speak publicly, and are familiar with the exchange, say that remark never happened.

Trump also claimed that Caine wore a “Make America Great Again” hat when they first met, a story Caine has since disputed. 

“For 34 years, I’ve upheld my oath of office and my commitment to my commission, and I have never worn any political merchandise,” he said during his hearing.

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Caine says he won’t be a yes man

Caine was nominated days after Trump fired Brown, the previous Joint Chiefs chairman who was picked by former President Joe Biden in 2023. The job has traditionally had a four-year term. 

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.

At the time, Hegseth went on Fox News Sunday and said Brown was “an honorable man,” but “not the right man for the moment.”

“The president respects leaders who untie the hands of warfighters in a very dangerous world,” Hegseth said. “I think Dan Caine is the man to meet the moment.”

Hegseth went on to fire several other top Pentagon officials, including Adm. Lisa Franchetti, chief of naval operations (and the first woman to lead the Navy); Gen. Jim Slife, vice chief of the Air Force; and the judge advocates general for the military services. 

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Critics — including Democratic lawmakers and retired military officials — decried the firings as destabilizing and unjustified, noting they seemed to target officers who had supported diversity, equity and inclusion efforts. 

The shakeup stoked wider fears of politicization of the Department of Defense, which came up at Caine’s confirmation hearing.

When asked whether he would “stand up and push back” if Trump ever asked him to use the military to do something unconstitutional, Caine answered affirmatively.

“I think that’s the duty and job that I have, yes,” he said. 

A version of this story originally published in February.

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

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Three more people charged with damaging Reflecting Pool after Trump’s multimillion-dollar restoration | CNN Politics

Three more people have been criminally charged with destruction of property at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

Officers say they detained Cameron Thiers, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Justin Carreno one Saturday afternoon in June and described in court documents witnessing them peeling and removing pieces of blue paint from the Reflecting Pool.

One officer “witnessed Carreno reach down into the reflecting pool and pull up a piece of the blue paint,” according to the court documents.

The officer who detained Dennison-Gibby “found 1 additional piece of the reflecting pool liner” in her purse, the documents said.

All three incidents were recorded on the officers’ body worn cameras, they said in the court documents.

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Several “partnering law enforcement agencies assigned to the Reflecting Pool” working with US Park Police were involved in detaining the two men and one woman — including officers from Texas, Oklahoma, Montana and California.

One of the officers said in court documents that Thiers “admitted to removing a piece of blue sealant from the Reflecting Pool and still had it in his hand when I made contact with him.”

The three defendants were arraigned in court Wednesday and pleaded not guilty to the misdemeanor charges of destruction of property with a value less than $1,000. The judge ordered them to stay away from the Reflecting Pool.

Lawyers for Thiers and Dennison-Gibby declined to comment. CNN has reached out to Carreno’s attorney.

If found guilty of destruction of property, the defendants could be fined up to $1,000 and face a maximum of 180 days behind bars.

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The New York Times first reported that three additional people had been charged with damaging the Reflecting Pool.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly claimed that vandals caused major damage to the pool by gashing the lining after his administration spent more than $14 million on renovations, though he has not provided evidence to support that claim. The officers who charged Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby did not accuse them of gashing the lining.

Former Olympic canoeist David Hearn was indicted by a grand jury in Washington, DC, last week for allegedly damaging the Reflecting Pool. Hearn — unlike Carreno, Thiers and Dennison-Gibby – was charged with destruction of property with a value of more than $1,000 which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison, if convicted. He is set to be arraigned in court Thursday.

Crews began draining the Reflecting Pool over the weekend to make repairs, according to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, for the second time in three months.

The move comes after weeks of problems – algae blooms, green-hued water, a chipping bottom and the administration’s allegations of vandalism – that have plagued the iconic landmark, making its woes the subject of national interest.

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

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Supreme Court financial disclosures reveal how their books add to their income

Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett speaks at the Reagan Library on Sept. 9, 2025, in Simi Valley, Calif. Barrett discussed and signed copies of her new book, Listening to the Law: Reflections on the Court and Constitution.

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Even as the Supreme Court was handing down one legal thunderbolt after another last week, the justices were quietly releasing their annual financial reports. Justice Samuel Alito was the only sitting justice to request an extension, which he has done for 15 years. The disclosures do not give a complete account of the justices’ total income and wealth, but they give insights into their concertgoing, guest professorships and even their involvement in youth sports.

In addition to their salaries, much of the justices’ reported income came from their book deals. Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson led the pack earning more than $1.1 million last year for a total of roughly $4 million since her memoir, Lovely One, was published in 2024.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor, Neil Gorsuch, Amy Coney Barrett and retired Justice Anthony Kennedy also reported income from published books. Earnings from their books ranged from $849,000 for Barrett, to $300,000 for Gorsuch and $88,000 for Sotomayor, whose books include her 2013 autobiography and five children’s books. Justice Clarence Thomas, who previously earned $1.5 million for his 2007 memoir, listed no publisher payments last year, and Justice Brett Kavanaugh, one of 13 co-authors of a 2016 legal treatise, also received no payments last year. Kavanaugh is said to be working on a memoir but he listed no payments for the anticipated book. Alito does have a book coming out in the fall, but with his financial report still outstanding, there is no data on how much he was paid for the work in 2025.

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The only two sitting justices who have not written books are Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Elena Kagan.

Many justices also earned income from teaching at law schools. Roberts reported income from New England Law, located in Boston, and Gorsuch reported teaching income from George Mason University in Virginia. Thomas taught classes at Catholic University in Washington, D.C., and Barrett and Kavanaugh taught at Notre Dame Law School. Barrett graduated from the school and began teaching there 23 years ago; Kavanaugh has family connections to Notre Dame.

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

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Manhattan Building’s Columns Buckled Beneath New Addition, Images Show

At least two structural columns buckled and failed in a 37-story office tower in Midtown Manhattan on Tuesday, prompting evacuations of nearby streets and buildings. While city officials asserted that the tower was in no danger of collapsing completely, outside engineers said further failures in the structure could not be ruled out.

A pair of columns that failed completely were part of the tower’s existing structure. A New York Times review of images and videos from inside the building has found that several floors were added atop these columns.

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City officials said in a news conference on Tuesday that the building was continuing to move, while they simultaneously assured the city that the building would not suffer “total collapse.” “The way this building is constructed, it’s a steel-frame building,” John Esposito, a chief in the Fire Department in New York, said at the afternoon news conference. “So, it would not be a total collapse. It would be more of a localized collapse.” Still, he said, “that remains our concern, that it’s moved.”

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Engineers said that the movement itself was cause for concern. In a properly designed steel building, they said, loads should redistribute quickly to surviving structural supports if columns failed.

Joe DiPompeo, a former president of the Structural Engineering Institute at the American Society of Civil Engineers, said that if the structure had been overloaded, he would expect any movement “to happen very quickly,” rather than gradually.

“Generally when a column buckles, it’s a sudden failure,” Mr. DiPompeo said. He said that a full collapse remained unlikely given the redundancies built into the building codes.

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Engineers often refer to the most dangerous possibility as a progressive collapse, a process in which structures near the initial failure become overstressed and also fail, potentially bringing down the building if the sequence continues. While unlikely, it cannot be ruled out, Mr. DiPompeo said.

Footage recorded from inside the building shows at least two structural columns appear to have failed completely, Mr. DiPompeo said. Other nonstructural, interior walls — or at least the metal “studs” that were in place to hold them up — also appear to have deformed.

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“The only way that really happens is if the floor above them dropped. It looks like the floor above could have dropped a foot or two, which is obviously not a good situation,” Mr. DiPompeo said.

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The 37-story building is in the process of being converted from office space into residential units. Four new floors and a large vertical portion were added onto the existing building in recent months. The vertical portion consists of a stack of over a dozen new floors cantilevered out over the existing building below.

Engineers said that there was nothing inherently wrong with adding residential floors or the cantilevered section above the columns that failed, as long as the original structure and the modifications had properly accounted for the added weight and wind loads.

“The cantilever alone doesn’t change anything,” Mr. DiPompeo said, but it does put additional load on the columns underneath — a factor that should have been reflected in the design.

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Nathan Berman, managing principal and founder of MetroLoft, the developer overseeing the conversion, said on Tuesday that “this incident is nothing more than a typical construction mishap.”

He said two columns near the northwest corner of the tower had bent under the weight of additions to the building above, most likely because those columns had not been properly reinforced, though he said an investigation would determine the cause. The rest of the columns, he said, “picked up the weight.” He estimated the affected floors above the failed columns had sagged by a maximum of four inches.

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Mr. Berman said that he expected the problems to be fixed and the project to be completed with, at most, a slight delay.

On Tuesday evening, installation of temporary shoring was set to begin shortly, in order to help stabilize the 20th and 21st floors of the building.

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