“President Donald Trump ordered the Navy to return to using steam catapults to launch planes off of aircraft carriers, acting on a longtime complaint despite opposition from many naval officers,” Bloomberg reports.

“In a presidential memorandum, Trump ordered Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to come up with a plan within 60 days on what would be needed to use hydraulic catapults in the next Gerald Ford-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. The planned USS Doris Miller will be the fourth ship in the six-vessel Gerald R. Ford class of aircraft carriers.”

“The Navy has struggled with problems surrounding its modern electromagnetic system to launch jets off the first of the new aircraft carriers, the USS Gerald R. Ford.”

“The Pentagon is shutting congressional Democrats out of classified briefings — and even Republicans are shocked by the brazen partisanship,” Politico reports.

”Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth trekked to Capitol Hill at least twice in recent weeks to make closed-door pitches for his record $1.5 trillion defense budget. But lawmakers in both parties say he followed an increasingly familiar pattern of excluding Democrats.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was with President Trump last month when he secretly took a different plane from the publicly identified Air Force One aircraft from the NATO summit,” CBS News reports.

“Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent were on the decoy flight. The secretaries, who separated and maintained the line of succession, were aware the president was on another, secret plane.”

“President Donald Trump said on Wednesday he secretly switched planes in ‌Turkey last month at the direction of the U.S. Secret Service, but that the plane he ultimately flew on was still more vulnerable than Air Force One,” Reuters reports.

“Following a NATO summit in Ankara, Trump was transferred from Air Force One to a military ​plane via a catering truck in an extraordinary deception prompted by an Iranian assassination threat.”

New York Times: With Trump secretly evacuated, imperiled Air Force One became a flying decoy.

“As President Donald Trump secretly left an Air Force One jet on a catering truck last month in response to a potential Iranian assassination threat in Turkey, he was accompanied by some of his most loyal and longest-serving aides, but no Cabinet officials,” the Washington Post reports.

”Other passengers on the truck included Dan Scavino, the White House deputy chief of staff; Natalie Harp, the president’s executive assistant; and Walt Nauta, the director of Oval Office operations.”

“A few lower-profile aides also were present, but the group did not include Secretary of State Marco Rubio or other top officials at the highest level of the government.”

New York Times: Rubio, Bessent and Miller traveled on decoy plane from Turkey without Trump.

“The threat to Air Force One was seen as so dire that they sneaked President Trump off the jet in a catering container to keep him safe. But the same dire threat did not stop them from then sending Air Force One into the skies anyway with a planeful of government employees, reporters and military personnel serving as decoys,” the New York Times reports.

“If the Iranians really were trying to shoot down the presidential plane last month, as U.S. officials concluded at the time, then the subterfuge in Ankara, Turkey, that protected the president also may have made targets of dozens of other people who flew aboard the jet, some of them unaware that Mr. Trump was not actually with them because it was considered too dangerous.”

For members: The Extraordinary Ruse to Protect Trump