Real leaders - the ones who can be confident they have the support of the people - don't have to indulge in these gross disgusting displays of power.
The ridiculous spectacle of a public execution is not done to punish the offender. It's done to condition the audience.
- and -
Trump officials now leaning against livestream of execution, sources say
Trump administration officials are leaning against livestreaming the execution of the ex-Army major convicted of the killing of 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009, sources familiar with the discussions said. Last week, the Pentagon had said that the public would be able to view the execution live.
President Trump had not yet made a final decision on Tuesday, two of the sources told CBS News.
White House and Pentagon spokespeople didn't immediately comment.
There has been pressure from Congress and elsewhere not to livestream Nidal Hasan's execution by firing squad, which is scheduled to take place on Dec. 3.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last Thursday in an interview with Real America's Voice that the Pentagon planned to make the execution public.
"He's going to get a firing squad of soldiers, as it should be," Hegseth said. "We'll make sure that people are able to watch it, that it's public — because people need to understand that there's serious consequences for these types of things."
CNN reported earlier Tuesday that Mr. Trump and his advisers were debating whether to air the firing squad execution live, and that Mr. Trump had remarked privately that he didn't initially know Hasan was paralyzed from the waist down.
Several top Republicans in recent days expressed opposition to livestreaming Hasan's execution, and Vice President JD Vance said that if it were broadcast live, "I'm not going to be watching it."
As the president departed for a campaign rally in Alaska on Tuesday, a reporter asked him whether he's decided to allow the execution to be livestreamed. "We're looking at it," Mr. Trump replied.
GOP House Speaker Mike Johnson also acknowledged colleagues "who have concerns" in an interview with CBS News national correspondent and chief Washington analyst Robert Costa. Among them, he added, is "the concern would be that you would create a video that would be a recruiting tool for future terrorists." Johnson also said he would not watch the execution, and he told Costa, "I need to tell the White House what some of my colleagues think about that, and not everybody is in favor of the idea."
Pentagon quietly adds dozens to tally of troops wounded amid Iran war
With the addition of 29 U.S. sailors and eight Marines, the total number of personnel wounded since the start of hostilities has risen to 861, database shows.
The Pentagon’s public tally of troops wounded during the Iran war was quietly increased by 37 this week without explanation from the Defense Department.
The increase includes 29 Navy sailors and eight Marines, according to a review of the Pentagon’s public database of personnel killed and wounded during U.S. conflicts and other military operations overseas. The web portal is called the Defense Casualty Analysis System, or DCAS.
As of Wednesday, the total number of troops wounded during the Iran war is 861, according to DCAS. More than half are categorized in the Pentagon database as having occurred in “Overseas Operations” since the start of a July ceasefire between Washington and Tehran that later collapsed. Before then, killed and wounded troops were tallied under “Operation Epic Fury,” the Trump administration’s name for the Iran war.
The DCAS database does not explain how these 37 troops were wounded or when. A Navy official said all the sailors returned to duty following the unspecified injuries.
President Donald Trump and other senior administration officials have, since the ceasefire, repeatedly argued that the conflict is not a war. Vice President JD Vance told reporters on Sept. 3 that “Right now, there is no active shooting.”
Defense officials have said previously that DCAS data entry can lag for days or longer for a variety of reasons, including a delay in reporting concussions and brain injuries because sometimes symptoms don’t emerge right away.
Spokespeople for the Pentagon declined to comment about the attack, which was first reported Sunday night by NBC News.
The Navy and Marine Corps referred questions to U.S. Central Command, which oversees U.S. military missions in the Middle East. A spokesman for Central Command declined to comment. Military officials have not publicly disclosed any recent attacks on U.S. forces or other incidents that would account for how these 37 troops were wounded.
The Trump administration’s casualty accounting practices have faced intense scrutiny since earlier this year, when the names of four U.S. troops who died as a result of the Iran war were briefly excluded from the Pentagon’s official tally.
Last week, The Washington Post reported that more American service members have died in the Middle East during the Iran conflict than the Pentagon has disclosed publicly. Officials said that as many as five military fatalities are not reflected in the DCAS database — a discrepancy that remains unresolved. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed the article was inaccurate and called the reporting “disgusting.”
At the time of that report, the database showed that 18 U.S. personnel had died due to hostile and nonhostile action since Feb. 28, when the Trump administration, in concert with Israel, initiated the Iran war. As The Post reported, not all of the undisclosed fatalities are directly tied to the Iran conflict but involve U.S. personnel who were in the region amid the hostilities.
The DCAS tally of fatalities was increased to 19 this week after the death of an Army officer who experienced a medical emergency Sept. 18 while flying to the Middle East.
Historically, nonhostile deaths documented in the DCAS database have encompassed those caused by accidents, sudden health crises or self-inflicted wounds, including suicides. In past conflicts, those types of deaths were documented to provide the American public with an unvarnished accounting of the costs incurred by military personnel and their families.
Polls show that the Iran war is deeply unpopular with the American public and a potential political liability for Trump and the Republican Party heading into November’s midterm elections.
On Thursday, Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters that Tehran had made an overture to Washington seeking to revive peace talks.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is running into a wall of congressional GOP resistance as he tries to secure $1.5 trillion for the Pentagon next year.
Lawmakers’ growing reluctance to fulfill Hegseth’s eye-popping budget request reflects real intraparty concerns about his leadership, his relationship with Congress, and the ongoing war with Iran. It also punctuates months of drama at the Pentagon over the ouster and resignation of various top officials, in addition to reports of blocked military promotions.
Hegseth’s fraying ties on the Hill put him on course for a bigger headache after the election, according to interviews with a half-dozen senators as well as multiple administration officials.
“This could turn into a real standoff with the military caught in the middle,” a Trump administration official told Semafor. “The implications: There won’t be money available to pay recruitment bonuses, money to upgrade military housing and repair military housing won’t be there, money to fix ships and aircraft from the war won’t be there, and money to restockpile munitions won’t be there.”
“And the longer this drags out, the more dangerous it becomes, because we’re really depleted after the Iran war,” the official added.
Hegseth is pushing for both a sharp increase in military funding — he’s seeking spending more than 40% higher than last year — and a separate $88 billion to cover costs associated with the Iran war and additional weapons. The Pentagon chief’s expansive needs only heighten some Republicans’ skepticism of his leadership over the US military.
It does not appear that Hegseth has an executable plan to get the hundreds of billions in additional military funding he is requesting in the fall, one Republican senator told Semafor, adding that the lack of permanent civilian nominees to lead the Army and Navy are weighing on the Senate. Hegseth’s preferred pick for Army secretary, Sean Parnell, has faced questions over whether he could even be confirmed by the GOP Senate.
“There are a lot of people that are really upset with the war in Iran and how it’s being played out. We feel it’s hurting our chances in the elections in the fall, and it seems rather haphazard,” said the senator.
“We don’t like what we’re seeing when it comes to the pulling of officers off of the promotion lists,” this senator added. “We don’t like what we see with … indiscriminate firings of admirals and generals across the force.”
Hegseth retains the backing of President Donald Trump, despite his Republican doubters in Congress. Those closest to Trump currently see no chance that Hegseth is replaced. That would leave GOP lawmakers with little choice but to work with him, lest they risk holding up funding the White House says is badly needed.
“The president still is very much in Pete’s corner, but beneath him, there are very serious concerns,” the Trump official said. “Are they going to be able to get any additional money through? Are they going to be able to get any nominees confirmed?”
Most Republicans believe a party-line budget reconciliation bill is the best way to get the Pentagon more money after the election. But getting 50 out of the 53 GOP senators on board for that would be a major challenge.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who regrets voting to confirm Hegseth, said the secretary’s quandary “comes down to relationships, and I don’t think he’s built strong enough relationships.” Tillis said the first “meaningful briefing” he’s received on Iran occurred last week; the senator subsequently voted against continuing the war, along with three Republican colleagues.
Those four senators alone would be enough to tank a party-line defense spending bill. And given Hegseth’s distance from Congress, Tillis asked Semafor, “why is anybody going to blindly appropriate anything to him?”
“I agree there’s friction,” said Sen. John Kennedy, R-La. “The genesis of that friction is different, depending upon the senator.”
The Trump administration can’t rely on Democrats to pass bipartisan legislation if multiple Republicans are already set to block Hegseth’s request. The secretary, as the administration official noted, is “not going to get Democrat votes — he just can’t do it.”
Kennedy agreed: “Anybody who thinks that we’re going to get money for the Pentagon, which needs it, other than through reconciliation, needs to put down the bong.” He urged Republicans “to sit down and talk about it.”
Hegseth’s supporters also acknowledge a rift that’s damaging the Pentagon’s ability to get what it wants. Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview that the continued lack of engagement with Democrats “continues to be a strategic error” for Hegseth and his team.
“Republicans are frustrated that he hasn’t reached out to Democrats. He didn’t in his confirmation, and he hasn’t much since at all,” Cramer said.
Kingsley Wilson, a spokesperson for the Pentagon, said the administration conducted over 500 briefings on the budget request — some of them bipartisan — and said the department is “in lockstep with the Republican conference in Congress to achieve the President’s historic investment in defense.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
At the heart of the GOP frustration with Hegseth is his handling of military firings and promotions. Cramer supports much of what the secretary has done but acknowledged the turbulence has “bothered some people.
“And it probably has had an impact on morale a little bit,” Cramer added. “But all in all, I think Pete’s a pretty strong leader.”
Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, worked to arrange a bipartisan classified briefing about the administration’s funding request last week. The Senate Armed Services Committee also heard closed testimony from Hegseth’s top deputies, including Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg.
But Collins is cool to another party-line bill. “I don’t like reconciliation, period,” she told Semafor — and Hegseth, who she voted against.
“One of my concerns, which unfortunately has been borne out, was that he would fire a lot of very capable military officials, and he has done that. He has blocked promotions for some of our most capable military officers,” Collins said. “The number of women and Black people that had been struck from the list was awful.”
“He also is not the most respectful when it comes to Congress’ role,” she added. It’s something Republicans are urging Hegseth to fix.
Sen. Tim Sheehy, R-Mont., started prodding the Pentagon to go into sell mode last winter. He said he believes the $1.5 trillion top-line number is needed to maintain military superiority but said the administration has got “to communicate that better” to Congress.
“You’ve got to come up here and sell your vision to the board of directors of America, which is us,” Sheehy said. “Everyone has every right to be skeptical … [the Pentagon’s] been almost a symbol of bureaucratic dysfunction. It’s not quite Somali fraud in Minnesota, but it’s been some pretty dumb sh*t we spent money on.”
The upcoming election isn’t necessarily going to bring relief to Hegseth; in fact it might be the opposite, if Republicans lose serious ground in the midterms.
Several of the party’s candidates are now campaigning to end the Iran war, and it’s hard to see where 50 Senate votes for more funding will come from right now. And that’s not even getting into the fractious House.
Trump’s continued backing of Hegseth sets up a choice for Republicans, who have no realistic shot of ousting the defense secretary. They’ll have to decide whether to risk his ire (and military readiness) or hold their nose and vote the money through this year.
Because if Democrats take either chamber of Congress, it appears more military funding is off the table until the war ends.
Typical of the top-down management-by-asshole style that's apparently all the rage in the Trump regime, Hegseth seems to think the problem isn't actually the problem - the problem is that people know about the problem.
On my honor I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country. To obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.
Scout Law:
A Scout is: TRUSTWORTHY
Tell the truth and keep promises. People can depend on you.
LOYAL
Show that you care about your family, friends, Scout leaders, school, and country.
HELPFUL
Volunteer to help others without expecting a reward.
FRIENDLY
Be a friend to everyone, even people who are very different from you.
COURTEOUS
Be polite to everyone and always use good manners.
KIND
Treat others as you want to be treated. Never harm or kill any living thing without good reason.
OBEDIENT
Follow the rules of your family, school, and pack. Obey the laws of your community and country.
CHEERFUL
Look for the bright side of life. Cheerfully do tasks that come your way. Try to help others be happy.
THRIFTY
Work to pay your own way. Try not to be wasteful. Use time, food, supplies, and natural resources wisely.
BRAVE
Face difficult situations even when you feel afraid. Do what you think is right despite what others might be doing or saying.
CLEAN
Keep your body and mind fit. Help keep your home and community clean.
REVERENT
Be reverent toward God. Be faithful in your religious duties. Respect the beliefs of others.
U.S. ready to cut support to Scouts, accusing them of attacking 'boy-friendly spaces'
The century-old partnership between the U.S. military and Scouting could be coming to an end.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is planning for the military to sever all ties with Scouting America, saying the group once known as the Boy Scouts is no longer a meritocracy and has become an organization designed to "attack boy-friendly spaces," according to documents reviewed by NPR.
In a draft memo to Congress, which sources shared with NPR but which has not yet been sent, Hegseth criticizes Scouting for being "genderless" and for promoting diversity, equity and inclusion.
The military has provided support to the Scouts for more than 100 years, assistance that was formalized in 1937. But in one memo, Hegseth says, "The organization once endorsed by President Theodore Roosevelt no longer supports the future of American boys."
The proposal calls for the Pentagon to no longer provide medical and logistical aid to the National Jamboree, which brings in as many as 20,000 scouts to a remote site in West Virginia. It also states that the military will no longer allow Scout troops to meet at military installations in the U.S. and abroad, where many bases have active Scout programs.
A source told NPR the documents were being prepared at the Pentagon to communicate Hegseth's decision to Congress, but that they had not been sent yet. The source requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the documents.
In response to an inquiry from NPR, the Pentagon sent a statement attributed to "a War Department official" saying they wouldn't comment on "leaked documents that we cannot authenticate and that may be pre-decisional."
Scouting America released a statement saying the organization is proud of its long affiliation with the military and will work to continue it.
"Scouting is and has always been a nonpartisan organization," the statement read. "Over more than a century, we've worked constructively with every U.S. presidential administration — Democratic and Republican — focusing on our common goal of building future leaders grounded in integrity, responsibility, and community service."
Congress requires the Pentagon to support the scouting program's Jamboree, a gathering of thousands of young scouts held every three or four years. The U.S. military lends trucks, ambulances and medical teams, and puts on aviation and skydiving demonstrations, all at no cost to the Scouts. For the military, it's both a training exercise and an opportunity to recruit highly motivated, civic-minded kids.
But the law includes an exemption: the Secretary of Defense can withhold support if he determines providing it would be "detrimental to national security."
Drafts of a report to Congress obtained by NPR show Hegseth invoking that clause — accusing Scouting America of fostering "gender confusion."
His memo to the House and Senate Armed Services committees argues the Scouts have strayed from their mission to "cultivate masculine values." It also claims that with international conflicts and a tight budget, sending troops, doctors and vehicles to a 10-day youth event would harm national security by diverting resources from border operations and protecting U.S. territory.
President Trump, the honorary leader of Scouting America by nature of his elected office, praised the crowd at the Jamboree in West Virginia in 2017. "The United States has no better citizens than its Boy Scouts. No better," the president told the crowd. He pointed out that 10 of his cabinet members were former Scouts.
Hegseth was never a Boy Scout, and has said he grew up in a church-based youth group that focuses on memorizing Bible verses. Last year, as a Fox News host, he complained about the Scouts changing their name and admitting girls back in 2018.
"The Boy Scouts has been cratering itself for quite some time," Hegseth said. "This is an institution the left didn't control. They didn't want to improve it. They wanted to destroy it or dilute it into something that stood for nothing."
What Hegseth says about the Scouts echoes his moves at the Pentagon, cutting DEI programs and firing some senior female and African-American officers, while suggesting diversity hires weaken the organization.
A draft memo to top Pentagon leaders about Scouting America, which was also shared with NPR, picked up on that theme. "Scouting America has undergone a significant transformation," the memo states. "It is no longer a meritocracy which holds its members accountable to meet high standards."
NBC first reported in April that the Pentagon was considering breaking with Scouting America, citing sources familiar with the move. In a statement to NBC, Sean Parnell, the Pentagon's chief spokesman, said, "Secretary Hegseth and his Public Affairs team thoroughly review partnerships and engagements to ensure they align with the President's agenda and advance our mission."
Banning Scout troops from meeting on military bases in the U.S. and overseas troubles Kenny Grant. He's a retired Army Staff Sergeant who served as a sniper in Iraq and is the parent of three Scouts — two girls and a boy. Because of his military service, his family has moved frequently.
"We went from Louisiana to Alaska. From Alaska to Germany. From Germany to Texas," he said. But at every military base there was a Scout troop that could help ease the transition to a new home. "We don't have to say a word to them, let them go see the other kids, and they'll be immediately integrated in."
Grant was surprised by the proposal to cut all Pentagon ties with the Scouts.
"It's gonna be kind of harsh the way I say this… It's kind of like they don't care about us more than they care about their perceived message. Scouting… It probably is not a perfect organization, but … I can't even say how vast their benefits are, especially for military families."
Scouting has long been a part of military recruiting efforts. As many as 20 percent of cadets and midshipmen at the service academies are Eagle Scouts, according to statistics from Scouting America. Moreover, enlistees who've earned Eagle get advanced military rank and better pay. That practice would end.
The potential impact is causing friction at the Pentagon. In one memo sent to the department's Undersecretary for Policy Elbridge Colby, Navy Secretary John Phelan warns the proposed new policy might be "too restrictive." Up to a third of the Navy's officers in training, he writes, have some scouting background.
"Passive support to Scouting America through access to military installations and educational opportunities aboard said installations serve as a crucial recruiting and community engagement tool for the [Navy]," Phelan wrote in the memo, which NPR also viewed. "Prohibition of access could be detrimental to recruitment and accession efforts across the department."
Whether Hegseth's argument — that supporting the Jamboree and allowing Scout troops on military bases harms national security — will pass muster with Congress is unclear. But the statute also requires the report be submitted "in a timely manner." Planning for next summer's Jamboree is already well underway.
Included in the documents NPR reviewed is a draft letter to the head of Scouting America, informing him that the Secretary has disapproved the use of DoD personnel and equipment for the Jamboree - detailing what will not be available. It concludes, "You have our best wishes for a safe and successful National Scout Jamboree."
Trump's fondness for pushing up to, and through, legal limits has the military wrestling with questions of whether or not they're being ordered to do things outside of the authority of their commanders.
"No more thinking. No more individual initiative. No more Adapt, Improvise, Overcome. Just wait for your orders and do what you're told. Oh - and morale be damned. That is all"
There was enough brass in that room
to make John Philip Sousa blush
Trump, Hegseth lecture military leaders in rare, politically charged summit
The unusual, hastily organized event became a forum for the president and his defense secretary to tout their partisan agenda.
Hundreds of the U.S. military’s top leaders listened in silence to highly partisan addresses from President Donald Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth on Tuesday, with each harshly criticizing their predecessors and hyping their political objectives during a summit that was extraordinary in nature but ultimately broke little new ground.
The event, organized by Hegseth’s team at the Pentagon, summoned generals and admirals from their command posts throughout the world to Marine Corps Base Quantico, in Virginia, about 30 miles south of Washington, Gen. Dan Caine, Trump’s hand-selected chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told attendees in his opening comments that the event was an “unprecedented opportunity and honor” for the assembled senior officers and their top enlisted advisers to hear directly from the military’s civilian leadership.
Trump, with an eager Cabinet official now in charge at the Pentagon, has repeatedly and unapologetically trampled on long-standing norms intended to keep the American military beyond the grasp of partisan politics. But Tuesday’s presentation stood apart as perhaps the most flagrant demonstration to date of this administration’s wholesale disregard for such principles.
Trump, in meandering remarks stretching roughly 70 minutes, joked that if those in attendance did not like what he had to say, they could leave the room — but “there goes your rank, there goes your future,” he added, drawing uncomfortable laughter from some. Since Trump returned to power, he and Hegseth have fired numerous generals and admirals, often without cause, while focusing on a disproportionate number of women and others whom the president and the defense secretary alike have accused broadly of espousing a harmful “woke” ideology centered on enhancing the military’s diversity and inclusivity.
It was an ugly, threatening speech, steeped in ideas that are naive and simplistic, and have had nothing to do with what the US Military has been all about for 50 years now.
If you feel like getting a taste of the utter bullshit that is this regime, here's the full 2 hours:
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and President Donald Trump
addressed senior military leaders in Virginia on Sept. 30
The president defended his polarizing use of the armed forces to police American cities, decrying what he said was “the enemy within” while insisting he should be allowed to use military force domestically. He extolled his decision to rebrand the Defense Department as the Department of War, lamented his inability to end the conflict in Ukraine, and tacitly acknowledged the highly sensitive movements of U.S. submarines off the coast of Russia.
“I call it the ‘n-word,’” the president said of the submarines, appearing to allude to the vessels’ nuclear power. “There are two n-words, and you can’t use either of them.”
The assembled military brass sat through the presentations mostly silent, in keeping with the military’s nonpartisan tradition. Peter Feaver, a political scientist at Duke University, said that they “managed well a very difficult walk along a high wire” by listening respectfully to both speeches without responding. Trump and Hegseth, he added, also deserve credit for appearing to show that they understand why the military leaders were remaining quiet.
“The speeches raised a lot of questions that the military will have to grapple with in the months ahead,” Feaver said. “But they won’t have to do so on live TV, and so a very tricky moment in American civil-military relations did not produce the disaster that some feared.”
Trump was introduced by Hegseth, whose fiery warmup act for the president at times relied on profanity and crass, inflammatory language. The Pentagon chief had planned the event without expecting that the president would be involved, issuing a mysterious order last week summoning all senior military commanders and their enlisted aides to Virginia but providing them no information about the itinerary. The order, first reported by The Washington Post on Thursday, alarmed some after the firing of so many generals and admirals this year.
During his remarks Tuesday, Hegseth, a former Fox News personality who served as an officer in the National Guard, lectured the men and women — each with decades more military experience — seated silently before him. He vowed to make the military “stronger, tougher, faster, fiercer and more powerful than it has ever been before,” repeating numerous talking points he has used throughout his tenure atop the Pentagon — including that the military brass needs to crack down on standards ranging from physical fitness to grooming and discipline.
He blamed “foolish and reckless politicians” for allowing the military to stray from its primary focus, to fight and win wars, and pledged to fix what he called “decades of decay” in the force. He also declared that “politically correct and overbearing rules of engagement,” the guidelines that shape how U.S. troops use lethal force in combat, are gone.
He also specifically forecast additional firings, saying “more leadership changes will be made, of that I am certain.”
Hegseth cited the Gulf War — in which U.S. troops and allies beat back an Iraqi invasion and annexation of neighboring Kuwait within months, from 1990 to 1991 — as an example of a conflict that he sees as a model for the United States. He characterized it as a “limited mission with overwhelming force and a clear end state.”
He also cited President Ronald Reagan’s buildup of the U.S. military in the 1980s as playing a significant role, and noted that many military leaders then drew on combat experience in Vietnam.
“The same holds true today,” Hegseth said. “Our civilian and military leadership is chock full of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan who say ‘never again’ to nation-building and nebulous end states. This clear-eyed view all the way in the White House, combined with President Trump’s military buildup, postures us for future victories.”
Hegseth said he will overhaul the channels troops and civilian employees have available to them to anonymously file whistleblower complaints, report toxic leadership, or point out unequal treatment based on race, gender, sexuality or religion.
“No more frivolous complaints. No more anonymous complaints, no more repeat complaints, no more smearing reputations, no more endless waiting, no more legal limbo, no more sidetracking careers. No more walking on eggshells,” Hegseth pronounced. “Of course, being a racist has been illegal in our formations since 1948. The same goes for sexual harassment. Both are wrong and illegal.”
Upholding high standards, Hegseth declared, “is not toxic,” decrying what he said has been a “bastardization” of phrases like “toxic leader.” The Pentagon, he said, will undertake a review of such phrases, empowering military officials to “enforce standards without fear of retribution or second guessing.”
That last-minute assembly has raised questions among critics about its cost — particularly for an address that could have been delivered by secure videoconferencing equipment. Flying, lodging and transporting all the military leaders from as far away as Japan, the Middle East and Europe is likely to cost millions of dollars, according to two former officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue and estimated based on past government travel experience.
The event also raised security concerns about having all the top leadership in one place, particularly given that Tuesday is the end of the fiscal year, with a government shutdown looming. Guidance issued by the Defense Department states that if a shutdown occurs, all travel should be “terminated,” but with exceptions granted by senior leaders.
Military leaders voice concern over Hegseth’s new Pentagon strategy
The critiques from multiple top officers, including the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Dan Caine, come as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities.
Military leaders have raised serious concerns about the Trump administration’s forthcoming defense strategy, exposing a divide between the Pentagon’s political and uniformed leadership as Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth summons top brass to a highly unusual summit in Virginia on Tuesday, according to eight current and former officials.
The critiques from multiple top officers, including Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, come as Hegseth reorders U.S. military priorities — centering the Pentagon on perceived threats to the homeland, narrowing U.S. competition with China, and downplaying America’s role in Europe and Africa.
President Donald Trump will attend the abrupt gathering of generals and admirals at Marine Corps Base Quantico, where Hegseth is expected to deliver remarks on military standards and the “warrior ethos,” even as uniformed leaders fear mass firings or a drastic reorganization of the combatant command structure and the military hierarchy.
The debate over the National Defense Strategy — the Pentagon’s primary guide for how it prioritizes resources and positions U.S. forces around the world — is the latest challenge for top military officials navigating the Trump administration’s unorthodox approach to the armed forces.
People familiar with the editing process, who like others spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe sensitive deliberations, described a growing sense of frustration with a plan they consider myopic and potentially irrelevant, given the president’s highly personal and sometimes contradictory approach to foreign policy.
Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell declined to comment on the substance of the classified document or whether concerns had been raised in the editing process.
“Secretary Hegseth has tasked the development of a National Defense Strategy that is laser focused on advancing President Trump’s commonsense America First, Peace Through Strength agenda,” Parnell said in a statement. “This process is still ongoing.”
Trump political appointees within the Pentagon’s policy office — including some officials who have previously criticized long-standing American commitments to Europe and the Middle East — drafted the strategy, now in its final edits.
The draft plan has been shared widely with military leaders from the global combatant commands to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, some of whom questioned what its priorities would mean for a force designed to respond to crises around the globe, according to three people familiar with the matter.
Dissent during the drafting process is normal, but the number of officials concerned about the document — and the depth of their criticism — is unusual, several people said.
Caine shared his concerns with top Pentagon leadership in recent weeks, according to two people familiar with the matter.
“He gave Hegseth very frank feedback,” one of the two people said, noting that Pentagon policy chief Elbridge Colby was also included in the discussion. “I don’t know if Hegseth even understands the magnitude of the NDS, which is why I think Caine tried so hard.”
The second person said Caine has tried to get the NDS to remain focused on preparing the military to deter and, if necessary, defeat China in a conflict.
Hegseth and his policy officials have signaled that the Pentagon will withdraw some forces from Europe and consolidate commands in a way that unnerves some U.S. allies, particularly amid Russia’s war with Ukraine and its recent, repeated incursions into NATO airspace. For years, Pentagon strategy has been anchored in the idea that the nation’s best defense was in building and maintaining strong military alliances abroad.
Critics of that approach within the administration have argued that it has mired the U.S. in expensive wars on foreign soil, instead of securing domestic U.S. interests. Trump’s approach so far has largely been to prod allies to spend more on their own defense, at times alienating Republican defense hawks in Congress who are also urging higher defense spending at home.
While Trump has undertaken bombing campaigns in Yemen and Iran, his main focus has been surging the military toward missions close to American soil.
Under his command this year, the Pentagon has struck alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, deployed U.S. troops and weapons to the southern border, and sent the National Guard and Marines to U.S. cities, where they have aided deportation efforts and sought to curtail what the president has called “out of control” urban crime. Some of those domestic deployments are being challenged in court.
Over the weekend, Trump on social media ordered troops to Portland, Oregon, saying he was allowing them to use “full force” to protect Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents whose operations have drawn sporadic protests in the city. Hegseth said Sunday in a memo to the Oregon National Guard that the mission would include the federalizing of about 200 Guard members.
Much of the internal criticism of the new strategy regards the document’s emphasis on threats to the U.S. homeland even as China continues a rapid military buildup that uniformed leaders have warned is narrowing the U.S.’s edge in the Pacific, according to several people familiar with the matter.
There are still substantial sections of the document that do focus on China, but these are largely concentrated on the threat of an attack on Taiwan, rather than global competition with the U.S.’s largest adversary, five people said. Colby has long warned that the U.S. military is unprepared for the risk of a Chinese invasion and called for Washington to shift attention and resources toward the problem.
“There’s a concern that it’s just not very well thought out,” one former official said of the strategy.
The document’s tone is also far more partisan than past strategies, saying the Biden administration caused an erosion of America’s military in rhetoric similar to Hegseth’s speeches, two people familiar with the plan said.
Hegseth, meanwhile, is leading an overhaul of the armed forces, promising to cut the roughly 800 generals and admirals overseeing the U.S. military by 20 percent and redraw the lines of the U.S.’s combatant commands. The secretary has already fired senior officers, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr. and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti. A disproportionate number of women have been relieved during the sackings.
The Pentagon’s interim defense strategy, which The Washington Post first reported in detail in March, included a similar focus on Taiwan and homeland defense, going as far as to urge Pentagon leaders to “assume risk” in other parts of the globe to meet both priorities.
That interim document also hinted at the emerging strategy to use military personnel in a more assertive role at home and abroad. The Pentagon was directed by Hegseth to “prioritize efforts to seal our borders, repel forms of invasion including unlawful mass migration, narcotics trafficking, human smuggling and trafficking, and other criminal activities, and deport illegal aliens in coordination with the Department of Homeland Security,” according to the document.
Relevant then. Relevant now. The only thing that's changed is a number on the calendar.
4-Star General Jim Mattis, USMC, Retired
In Union There is Strength
"I have watched this week’s unfolding events, angry and appalled. The words “Equal Justice Under Law” are carved in the pediment of the United States Supreme Court. This is precisely what protesters are rightly demanding. It is a wholesome and unifying demand—one that all of us should be able to get behind. We must not be distracted by a small number of lawbreakers. The protests are defined by tens of thousands of people of conscience who are insisting that we live up to our values—our values as people and our values as a nation.
When I joined the military, some 50 years ago, I swore an oath to support and defend the Constitution. Never did I dream that troops taking that same oath would be ordered under any circumstance to violate the Constitutional rights of their fellow citizens—much less to provide a bizarre photo op for the elected commander-in-chief, with military leadership standing alongside.
We must reject any thinking of our cities as a “battlespace” that our uniformed military is called upon to “dominate.” At home, we should use our military only when requested to do so, on very rare occasions, by state governors. Militarizing our response, as we witnessed in Washington, D.C., sets up a conflict—a false conflict—between the military and civilian society. It erodes the moral ground that ensures a trusted bond between men and women in uniform and the society they are sworn to protect, and of which they themselves are a part. Keeping public order rests with civilian state and local leaders who best understand their communities and are answerable to them.
James Madison wrote in Federalist 14 that “America united with a handful of troops, or without a single soldier, exhibits a more forbidding posture to foreign ambition than America disunited, with a hundred thousand veterans ready for combat.” We do not need to militarize our response to protests. We need to unite around a common purpose. And it starts by guaranteeing that all of us are equal before the law.
Instructions given by the military departments to our troops before the Normandy invasion reminded soldiers that “The Nazi slogan for destroying us…was ‘Divide and Conquer.’ Our American answer is ‘In Union there is Strength.’” We must summon that unity to surmount this crisis—confident that we are better than our politics.
Donald Trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not try to unite the American people—does not even pretend to try. Instead he tries to divide us. We are witnessing the consequences of three years of this deliberate effort. We are witnessing the consequences of three years without mature leadership. We can unite without him, drawing on the strengths inherent in our civil society. This will not be easy, as the past few days have shown, but we owe it to our fellow citizens; to past generations that bled to defend our promise; and to our children.
We can come through this trying time stronger, and with a renewed sense of purpose and respect for one another. The pandemic has shown us that it is not only our troops who are willing to offer the ultimate sacrifice for the safety of the community. Americans in hospitals, grocery stores, post offices, and elsewhere have put their lives on the line in order to serve their fellow citizens and their country. We know that we are better than the abuse of executive authority that we witnessed in Lafayette Square. We must reject and hold accountable those in office who would make a mockery of our Constitution. At the same time, we must remember Lincoln’s “better angels,” and listen to them, as we work to unite.
Only by adopting a new path—which means, in truth, returning to the original path of our founding ideals—will we again be a country admired and respected at home and abroad."
If we're going to be hunting down wasteful spending, maybe the dumbass in the White House could think about setting a fucking example.
Trump Orders Four Mile Military Parade for his 79th Birthday
SHOW OF FARCE
The president was previously forced to abandon plans for a procession in Washington, D.C., due to its colossal price tag.
President Donald Trump is making plans for a military parade in Washington, D.C., on his 79th birthday, according to a report.
A source in the capital told the Washington City Paper that Trump has earmarked June 14 - which is the 250th anniversary of the U.S. Army - for the event.
The display of military might will march around four miles from the Pentagon in Arlington County, Virginia, to the White House, the D.C. source told the publication.
The report said that local officials are only now hearing of plans for the parade and that no formal request has been made for their assistance.
Arlington County Board Chair Takis Karantonis told the City Paper that the White House had given the county a “heads up” about the parade on Friday, with only 10 weeks until the event.
He said “the parade’s scope ” was ” unclear” and that no firm details were disclosed.
Other unnamed officials told the paper that a big military parade will require a huge amount of coordination between the six branches of the armed forces, along with several federal agencies and regional officials.
D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s office and the White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s requests for comment.
President Trump previously pushed for a grand military parade in 2018 during his first term in the White House but was stymied by estimates the event would cost $92 million, according to the Associated Press.
The event had been slated to include tanks, fighter jets, and historic military planes.
The plans emerged after Trump’s 2017 visit to France where he witnessed the Paris Bastille Day celebrations which included displays of heavy military machinery. Trump said the U.S. is “going to have to try and top” the French display, according to the AP.
President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump watch a U.S. military aircraft flyover at the "2020 Salute to America."
When that parade failed to materialize, Trump pushed for tanks to be displayed in D.C. during Independence Day celebrations in 2019. The inclusion of military vehicles in the “Salute to America” pageant contributed to the event costing taxpayers over $13 million—double the cost of previous celebrations, according to Politico.
No tanks were included in the same event the following year.
Biden attends the dignified transfer of the remains ofArmy Reserve Sergeants William Rivers, Kennedy Sanders and Breonna Moffett,three US service members killed in Jordan during a drone attackcarried out by Iran-backed militants.Dover AFB Feb. 2, 2024.
Joshua Roberts/Reuters
Trump didn't.
Trump Picks Golf Dinner Over Dignified Transfer of U.S. Troops’ Bodies
Rather than attend the dignified transfer of the bodies of four U.S. Army soldiers who died on a training mission in Lithuania, Donald Trump flew to Florida to watch a Saudi-funded LIV golf tournament at his own course and later join a dinner reception there, NBC News reported.
It was unclear who would be attending the transfer at Delaware’s Dover Air Force base, as the White House did not respond to a request for comment from the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast has been unable to verify the timing of the dignified transfer, and the White House and the Defense Department also did not respond to requests for comment from NBC.
The soldiers ...
Sgt. Jose Duenez Jr., 25, of Joliet, Illinois
Sgt. Edvin F. Franco, 25, of Glendale, California
Pfc. Dante D. Taitano, 21, of Dededo, Guam
Staff Sgt. Troy S. Knutson-Collins, 28, of Battle Creek, Michigan
... died when their 70-ton armored vehicle sank in a bog.
The four were honored earlier Thursday during a dignified departure ceremony in Lithuania, with the country’s president, Gitanas Nausėda, in attendance.
“I paid tribute to the four United States soldiers who lost their lives during training exercises in Lithuania,” Nausėda said afterward in a social media post.
“Americans are our loyal allies and friends. Our nation today expresses its condolences, respect, and gratitude to the entire American people.”
Presidents do not always attend dignified transfers of U.S. soldiers, however they have appeared in the past. Then-President Joe Biden and first lady Jill supported grieving families at Dover Air Force Base in February 2024 at a dignified transfer for three U.S. service members killed in a drone attack in Jordan. The Bidens had also met with the families prior to the ritual.
In August 2021, Trump attacked Biden for checking his watch while attending the dignified transfer of 13 U.S. service members killed in Kabul, Afghanistan.
Trump said he has been to Dover “many times.”
According to a 2020 article in The Huffington Post, Trump was so damaged after a Feb. 1, 2017, incident involving Bill Owens, the father of slain Navy SEAL William “Ryan” Owens, that he has avoided many of them since.
Owens refused to meet or shake Trump’s hand during the dignified transfer of Bill’s son, telling the Miami Herald at the time, “I told them I don’t want to meet the President.”
At the time of the HuffPost article, a review of Air Force records showed of 96 dignified transfers since the beginning of Trump’s first presidency. At that stage, he had been to just four.
An unlawful order in the military is an order that violates the Constitution, laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders.
Article 92 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) governs orders given in the military.
It covers failure to obey orders or regulations, and dereliction of duty.
Soldiers who violate a lawful order can be held for criminal violations.
What are some examples of unlawful orders?
Orders that are vague, overly broad, or intended to harass or humiliate a service member
Orders that violate established laws, regulations, or the UCMJ
Orders that an officer gave that they did not have the authority to give
What are some defenses to disobeying an unlawful order?
Lack of knowledge
The order was not lawful
Inability to comply
Mistake of fact
Duress
What should you do if you receive an unlawful order?
Consult with an experienced military defense attorney
Understand your rights
Present your case
If you're active duty military, Nat'l Guard, or reserves, and you're being ordered to violate the Constitutional rights of a US citizen - or anyone else - then you need to know your own rights and obligations.
