Pentagon Issues Damning Correction After Trump Brag

Jonathan Ernst/Reuters Donald Trump thanked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Gen.

Dan Caine for attending his speech Wednesday at the GOP midterm convention in Dallas, even though neither was there.

Trump, 80, mentioned Hegseth and Caine about a third of the way through his 106-minute speech, in which he said he would give American adults $5,000 each if Republicans held both chambers of Congress in the midterms.

“By the way, I’d like to thank Pete Hegseth, and I’d like to thank—I’d like to thank General Caine.

Where is General Caine? I’d like to thank—they’re here someplace.

This is a big room.

This place is packed,” Trump said.

Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was not in the arena.

He was about six miles away at a 9/11 anniversary event at the George W.

Bush Presidential Center, where he participated in a discussion with former Deputy National Security Adviser J.D.

Crouch, an agenda for the occasion noted .

Caine’s spokesperson, Joe Holstead, confirmed his appearance to The Washington Post.

The Daily Beast also confirmed through a spokesperson for Caine’s office that he did not attend Trump’s speech.

An F-16 fighter pilot with the D.C.