Former President George W. Bush appeared to take a jab by praising the general who is pushing President Donald Trump to end his war in Iran, five miles from the crucial Republican midterm convention he did not attend.
Bush made the remark Wednesday during an onstage appearance at the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, where former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice interviewed him for the center's "Engage" series.
About five miles away, the Republican Party was opening its first-ever midterm convention at the American Airlines Center, a two-day event billed as a celebration of Trump's America First agenda, Axios reported. Trump and Vice President JD Vance were the only confirmed speakers, and Bush was not expected to be among them.
In his opening remarks, Bush thanked the center's staff before turning to Gen. Dan Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who was in the audience.
"Thank God you are where you are, and we appreciate it," Bush said.
The war with Iran was nearly six months old, and Trump's top general had spent weeks telling other administration officials privately that the United States needed a way out of a conflict the president chose to enter, CNN reported in August.
Caine made clear to other senior Trump advisers that the military options for escalating the war could backfire, and that bombing alone was unlikely to achieve the president's stated goals, three sources familiar with the matter told CNN.
"Caine is looking for an off ramp," one of the sources said bluntly.
He raised the same concerns with CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Vance, and coordinated with them before meetings with the president so they could lay out the limits of the options on the table, two of the sources told CNN.
"I think it is just his way of protecting the military," one of the sources said of those conversations.
Caine had made a version of the argument in public, telling lawmakers at a hearing that "airpower has its limits," according to CNN.
Senior military commanders believe American munitions stockpiles are "dangerously low," and Caine raised the shortage with Trump in at least two meetings where escalation was discussed, CNN reported.
Before the war began, Trump had invoked Caine by name in a post claiming his top military adviser believed the conflict "will be something easily won," according to CNN.
In the same White House meeting where he raised the stockpile problem, Caine told Trump that the military could "absolutely wreck" Iran if the president decided to go ahead, one source told CNN.
"He's definitely pulling punches," a source familiar with Caine's interactions with Trump told CNN, comparing those White House conversations with what the general says privately to military leaders.
"He is out of his depth on this one," another source familiar with Caine's handling of the war told CNN.
Caine's spokesman, Joseph Holstead, declined to discuss the chairman's private conversations with the president or other senior officials and rejected what he called anonymous, agenda-driven descriptions of them, CNN reported.
"General Caine is an incredible asset to President Trump's national security team, and the overwhelming success of Operations Epic Fury, Midnight Hammer, and Absolute Resolve speaks for itself," a White House official told CNN.
Privately, Caine has told people he wants to restore trust in his post and in the military more broadly "even as Trump has politicized both," according to CNN.
Bush did not mention Trump, the war, or Caine's role in it. Video of the moment circulated Thursday morning after the account Headquarters posted it on X. The account wrote that Bush "appears to shade Trump by praising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Dan Caine," and paired the line with a clip of the exchange.
Bush has criticized the direction of American politics before without naming Trump, Axios reported, most pointedly in a 2017 speech at his presidential center.
"Bigotry seems emboldened," Bush said in that address. "Our politics seems more vulnerable to conspiracy theories and outright fabrication."
Bush did not name Trump in that speech either, and he has generally said little publicly about him.
He declined to endorse a candidate in the 2024 election, Axios reported. Trump, for his part, once said it would have been "wonderful" if then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) had moved to impeach Bush over the Iraq war.
The absence from this week's convention underscores the split between the Trump-era Republican Party and the Bush-era version of it, Axios reported. A person familiar with the convention planning, who was not authorized to speak publicly, said Bush was not expected to appear.
Republican National Committee spokesman Zach Kraft said Trump and Vance were the only speakers confirmed at that point and declined to say whether Bush had been invited, Axios reported. Bush's office did not respond to the outlet's question about an invitation.
Bush had already made other plans for the week. KERA reported that he had previously scheduled events marking the 25th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.
Dallas has been Bush's home base since the early 1990s. His presidential library sits on the Southern Methodist University campus, and a stretch of highway in the city is named for him, Axios reported.
The convention hall sits a 4.9-mile drive from the center, about 17 minutes in traffic.
Rice, who conducted Wednesday's interview, is the person Bush has said he wrote in for president in 2020, according to Axios.