Amna Nawaz
@PBSNewsHour·5.3M subscribers·62.2K videos
WATCH: Caine testifies he's willing to get fired for 'following the Constitution'
Posted
April 1, 2025
Views
247,278
Likes
2,191
Engagement
0.89%
April 1, 2025
247,278
2,191
0.89%
Every word spoken in this episode is indexed. Type any phrase to jump straight to the moment it was said.
Type any word or phrase that may have been spoken. Click a result to seek the player to that exact moment.
Try a name, a topic, or a quoted line
See what was published immediately before and after this episode.
1:28Now PlayingRetired Air Force Lt. Gen. Dan “Razin” Caine said Tuesday that he has “always strived to do the right thing and that's not going to change now" that he'd been nominated to serve as President Donald Trump's Joint Chiefs chairman.
He also said during his confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee that he was willing to be fired for following the Constitution.
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., questioned “to whom or what” Caine would swear his oath if he were confirmed as Joint Chiefs chairman.
“Senator, as I have for 34 years, it's to the Constitution,” Caine said.
Kelly began his question by describing the pressures on a previous Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Mark Milley, whom Trump has targeted for an investigation and possible demotion. Milley was replaced as the nation’s highest-ranking military officer with Gen. Charles Q. Brown by President Joe Biden.
Trump nominated Caine, a retired Air Force pilot, after firing Brown. Though he has decades of experience and has worked on national security and led special operations, he would need presidential waivers to meet several requirements of the job: Caine is retired, not active-duty, and has three stars — under U.S. code, chairs are usually expected to have served in a four-star position.
Subscribe for exclusive content in our newsletters
PBS News podcasts
Stream your PBS favorites with the PBS app
Find more from PBS News at
Subscribe to our YouTube channel
Sentinel Indexing in Progress
Metadata and chapters are available. Claim extraction for this episode is pending.
All video content is delivered via YouTube embedded players in accordance with the YouTube Terms of Service. Sentinel provides research tools that promote discovery and accountability across political media.
