The confirmation hearing on Tuesday for Lt. Gen. Dan Caine, President Trump’s pick to lead the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was strikingly uncontentious.
While the hearings for many other Trump nominees have been heated, General Caine’s was relatively smooth.
Democrats lodged their displeasure that Mr. Trump fired Gen. Charles Q. Brown, his last Joint Chiefs chairman, but seemed to indicate they viewed General Caine as perhaps the best possible option, under the circumstances. Republicans praised him.
Here are key takeaways from the hearing.
General Caine will probably be confirmed.
General Caine appears to have enough support to be approved by the Armed Services Committee and confirmed by the Senate.
He will almost certainly outperform Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in votes for confirmation. Mr. Hegseth needed the intervention of Vice President JD Vance to cast the deciding vote, making him defense secretary by a one-vote margin.
Throughout General Caine’s hearing, Democrats appeared to be caught between a rock and a hard place. They wanted him to say plainly that he would push back against some of Mr. Hegseth’s initiatives targeting ethnic minorities, women and other groups. But they did not want to push so hard that they irreparably harmed his relationships with Mr. Hegseth and Mr. Trump before he even takes office.