The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has voted to confirm retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, President Donald Trump\u2019s candidate for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.<\/p>\n
The 60 to 25 vote occurred after Democrats, backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), delayed Caine\u2019s nomination from being quickly approved in protest of Trump\u2019s removal of the previous top military commander, Gen. C.Q. Brown Jr. The senators, who recently took another two-week recess and skipped town, claimed Brown\u2019s ouster was unjustified.<\/p>\n
Despite Brown\u2019s unexplained removal, Caine received bipartisan support during a very calm confirmation hearing with no major challenges to him becoming the United States military\u2019s senior uniformed leader. The Senate Armed Services Committee, which conducted his hearing, voted 23-4 to forward his nomination to the full Senate.<\/p>\n
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), the panel\u2019s leader, encouraged his colleagues on Wednesday to pass Caine \u201cwithout any delays,\u201d citing China\u2019s ongoing military expansion and rivals that continue to band together against US interests.<\/p>\n
\u201cPresident Trump should have the expertise of the highest-ranking military officer in place without any delays,\u201d he said in a statement, arguing that Caine \u201csailed through\u201d the Senate Armed Services Committee\u2019s vote, \u201can overwhelming, nearly unanimous, bipartisan endorsement.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Senate approved Caine\u2019s nomination after Trump surprised the Pentagon and Congress in February by removing seven top officials, including Brown and Adm. Lisa Franchetti, the first female Chief of Naval Operations.<\/p>\n
Democrats contended that the firings were part of the Trump administration\u2019s effort to politicize the historically apolitical United States military, with the goal of filling key DOD leadership positions with people who would not disagree with him.<\/p>\n
Prior to his current job, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth campaigned for Brown to be sacked, along with all other \u201cwoke\u201d generals working in the building\u2019s diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sends a chilling message about who is and is not welcome in our military,\u201d Warren said of the firings during a Senate Armed Services subcommittee hearing Wednesday.<\/p>\n
During his confirmation hearing, Caine pledged to serve in an apolitical manner, asserting that if confirmed, he would not succumb to Trump\u2019s demands.<\/p>\n
He also stated that he would uphold US laws and the Constitution, that he was willing to be dismissed, and that he would object if the president requested him to carry out illegal orders.<\/p>\n
In nominating Caine, Trump\u00a0wrote, \u201cGeneral Caine is an accomplished pilot, national security expert, successful entrepreneur, and a \u2018warfighter\u2019 with significant interagency and special operations experience,\u201d and said that Caine had been \u201chighly qualified\u201d for promotion but was \u201cpassed over\u201d by the Biden administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut not anymore! Alongside Secretary Pete Hegseth, General Caine and our military will restore peace through strength, put America First, and rebuild our military,\u201d Trump added. \u201cFinally, I have also directed Secretary Hegseth to solicit nominations for five additional high level positions, which will be announced soon. Thank you for your attention to this matter!\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI expect you to pledge to always provide your best military advice to the president and the secretary of defense,\u201d said Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking Democrat on the committee. \u201cEven if that advice is not what they would want to hear.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Chinese Communist Party continues an expansive military buildup, and our adversaries continue to band together against the United States,\u201d Wicker said in a statement. \u201cIt is critical that the Senate confirm Lt. Gen. Caine as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff this week.\u201d<\/p>\n
The vote has been seen as another massive win for President Trump and his agenda, particularly his mission to restructure the U.S. military under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and other officials at the Pentagon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Republican-controlled U.S. Senate has voted to confirm retired Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, President Donald Trump\u2019s candidate for chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. The 60 to 25 vote occurred after Democrats, backed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), delayed Caine\u2019s nomination from being quickly approved in protest of Trump\u2019s removal of the previous top […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7398,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-7397","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-daily-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7397"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7399,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7397\/revisions\/7399"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailynewsintime.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}