CNN
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The retired Air Force general announced President Donald Trump as the next chairman of Co-State Chief of Staff after a sudden Friday night layoff of his predecessor. Experts with a “strong moral center.”
John Dan Dan “Razin” Kane, who was first noticed by Trump after his involvement in the battle with ISIS in 2018, has spent much of his career working in the Special Operations and Intelligence News community, and is calm and has been working He was polite, humble and apolitical, the authorities said. He has long flew under the radar given the highly classified nature of his work – and he liked it that way, officials said.
“There’s a bit of a story about him being chosen because he’s a partisan man,” a military official who served with Kane and known him for over a decade told CNN. “In my personal and professional experience, I have never seen anyone know him.
Kane, who retired as a three-star general in December, was a politically burning storm when Trump suddenly announced on Friday in place of General Charles Q. Brown, who had been co-headed since October 2023. We have entered the center of
It is rare for a retired general to be recalled to active services, but that happened before. For example, Army General Peter Shelmaker recalled becoming Secretary of the Army in 2003.
It is also very rare for a three-star general to earn a fourth star when he is promoted to the chairman, the country’s most senior military officer. Past Chairman received his fourth star by first taking command of combatants and serving as service chief before becoming a leading military adviser to the top US general and president.
However, Kane was in an unexpected position before. On the morning of 9/11 he was serving at Andrews Air Force Base near Washington, D.C. He wasn’t planning on flying first that day, but he eventually became the capital’s mission commander and armed an air-to-air missile to be wary of threats to the nation, but he said, “Afterbahn A few weeks ago I remembered in a few interviews with the podcast.
“We are willing to work with incredible professionals who are willing to protect, defend this country and go to the mat to protect our country,” Kane said.
Trump has been raving about Kane for years after the two met in Iraq during his first term as president. At the time, Kane was an indigenous Iraqi resolution as deputy commander of the US Central Command’s Special Operations Component and deputy commander of special operations.
In a statement at the 2019 Conservative Political Action Conference, the president described Kane as being out of “central casting,” and when Kane met in Iraq, the US called for a campaign against ISIS “completely in a week.” I remember saying I could finish it.”
“I said, “Why didn’t my other generals say it to me? Trump said in 2019. In a post on Truth Social on Friday night, Trump said Kane “Isis Carrif.” They called them “fighter jets” that contributed to the complete disappearance of the system.
Trump also claimed that Kane “loves him” Trump and “kills for you” wearing a hat that “makes America great again.”
However, military authorities who served with Kane said on Saturday that Kane “doesn’t have a Maga hat.” He never wears it. ”
Officials added that before accepting the chairman, Kane wanted to make sure Brown was “respectful and personally caring.”
“Everything I know about General Kane over the past decade has been characterized by character, integrity and humility,” military authorities said. “I’ve never seen him do the right thing. I’m always making judgments about missions. There was never a man who would cooperate from difficult conversations and hard calls on the battlefield.”
According to the official biographies, Caine is an F-16 pilot commissioned in October 1990 through the Reserve Officer Training Corps program at the Virginia Military Institute. His father was also a fighter pilot, and Kane called it “family business” in an interview with “Afterburn.”
He had an unusual career trajectory, rising from a fighter pilot in the Air Force to a senior level of the Joint Special Operations Commander. Caine joined a venture capital firm called Shield Capital after resigning in December, where she was a “serial entrepreneur and investor” from 2009 to 2016, but according to her official Air Force biography, she worked part-time. Ta.
Among his military awards and decorations are the famous flying crosses that are awarded to heroes on the senior service medal in flight, the bronze star of the bronze oakleaf cluster.
Kane acknowledged his unusual career path in a podcast interview, saying he joined the Special Operations Force community after rolling out multiple times over the years.
“It was about unfolding alongside the relationship that led me to the SOF community,” he said. “It’s really about relationships.” In an interview, Kane recalled that his experience with SOF really began when he helped plan an air operation to hunt Iraq’s Scudo missiles during Operation Iraq’s Freedom. .
He said he learned early in his career to be “humble, reliable, and approachable.”
“I couldn’t drink my Kool-Aid and never really could,” Kane said.
In the video portion of the podcast, Kane can wear some bracelets to commemorate the wars of the past and those fallen from those he served. A blue thing that recognizes 121 fallen from Air America, the CIA’s secret airline that operated throughout Vietnam. Military officials are commemorating CNN Green’s in memory of more than 60 service members who served with or under him who were killed in the battle.
Normally self-deteriorating, but as a pilot, Kane was “very aggressive” in the cockpit, pushing the aircraft to its limits while flying, and generally pushing “a little wild man,” military officials said. Ta. It earned him the call sign “Razin” from his squadron commander at the time – the play of his surname and the phrase “raising Cain” used to describe someone who is violent or destructive It will be done.
Starting in 2021, towards the end of Kane’s career, he served as Associate Director of Military Affairs at the Central Intelligence Agency. Previously, he helped oversee some of the Pentagon’s most sensitive intelligence and operations in the pentagon.
In stark contrast to Trump, who has long had a deep distrust of the intelligence news community, Kane described working for the CIA from 2021 to 2024 as one of the great honors of his career. Masu.
“I don’t know how I was chosen, but the boy is grateful for what he did,” Kane called “Afterburn” a “very special place.”
“Working for the CIA is a bit like a fight club. I don’t talk about fight clubs,” he said. “But every day there are world class experts who chase it in ways we can’t even imagine. And the honor and privilege of serving each of them is very close to me. , and importantly. While working in this job, I woke up every day and realized how I gained the privilege of serving there.”
General Frank McKenzie, head of state for the retired US Central Command, told CNN that when Caine was in the CIA he told Caine “a very sensitive operation” as “a lot of very sensitive operation.”
“I found him to be extremely talented, extremely professional and a good officer in all respects,” Mackenzie said Saturday.
Kane doesn’t mention politics in any of the few public comments he has made over the years. However, in a podcast interview, he touted the need to reform the Pentagon acquisition process. This has been called a priority by Defense Secretary Pete Hegses in recent years.
“Our ability as a combative nation to pivot at speed and to preempt these emerging technologies will be really important in the future,” Kane said. “We have a lot to do better as a joint force and as the Department of Defense along the line of acquisitions. 2s and (uncommitted officers) have the kits and features needed. there is.”
