New York Times: “Pentagon officials say SpaceX is considered likely to be the top recipient of this burst of new spending, which could generate billions of dollars in new contracts for the company.”

“That is because SpaceX manufactures both rockets that can launch military payloads into orbit and satellite systems that can deliver the surveillance and targeting tools needed for the project, which would require the largest military investments the United States has ever made in space.”

“The Pentagon inspector general has expanded an investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s sharing of military plans to a second Signal chat that included his wife and brother,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be interim national security advisor, as well as secretary of State, CBS News reports.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said he will wind down a Pentagon program that boosts the participation of women in peace building and conflict prevention that President Trump signed into law in his first term, Politico reports.

Hegseth called the program “yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops.”

Yet it was Trump who signed the program into law and Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem who wrote the House version of the legislation when she was in Congress.

“National security agencies across the Trump administration are ramping up investigations into alleged leaks to the news media, in some cases using polygraph tests that current and former officials say are creating a climate of fear and intimidation,” the Washington Post reports.

Said one official: “It’s a toxic environment. First you’ve got the insecurity of not knowing whether you’re going to get fired or not. Then there’s the witch hunt to find the whistleblowers who are exposing the ineptitude and bad management of agencies. They’re trying to silence those who do not follow the party line.”

“A U.S. Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet has been ‘lost’ at sea after it fell overboard from the USS Harry S. Truman aircraft carrier while it was being towed on board,” CNN reports.

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, facing criticism of his stewardship at the Pentagon and beset by staff turnover, added a member of Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to his circle of close advisers,” Bloomberg reports.

Former National Security Adviser Susan Rice bucked Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s intelligence following weeks of scrutiny over leaks at the Pentagon amid massive spending reductions at the Department of Defense, The Hill reports.

Said Rice: “Well, if you’re a white male Christian cisgender macho MAGA man, you can be as dumb as a rock and be deemed qualified to serve as secretary of Defense. That’s apparently what we’ve learned from this episode.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s personal phone number, the one used in a recent Signal chat, was easily accessible on the internet and public apps as recently as March, potentially exposing national security secrets to foreign adversaries,” the New York Times reports.

“The phone number could be found in a variety of places, including WhatsApp, Facebook and a fantasy sports site. It was the same number through which the defense secretary, using the Signal commercial messaging app, disclosed flight data for American strikes on the Houthi militia in Yemen.”

Politico: Pentagon leadership vacuum overwhelms Hegseth’s office.

Isaac Stanley-Becker: “On the priorities that matter most to the president, Waltz has less influence than Stephen Miller… Miller treats the advisory body not as a forum to weigh policy options, current and former officials told me, but as a platform to advance his own hard-line immigration agenda.”

“Meanwhile, Waltz’s authority to hire and fire his own staff has been swept out from under him.” 

“The disorder at the NSC, officials told me, stems from Trump’s impatience with process, disregard for the law, and insistence on loyalty in place of expertise.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had an internet connection that bypassed the Pentagon’s security protocols set up in his office to use the Signal messaging app on a personal computer,” the AP reports.

“Known as a ‘dirty’ internet line by the IT industry, it connects directly to the public internet where the user’s information and the websites accessed do not have the same security filters or protocols that the Pentagon’s secured connections maintain.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was rattled,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“Word had leaked that he was planning a classified briefing for Elon Musk on China, a revelation that infuriated President Trump and raised alarms inside the Pentagon given Musk’s business ties to Beijing.”

Said Hegseth to Adm. Christopher Grady: “I’ll hook you up to a fucking polygraph!”

“Grady was never subjected to a polygraph, and Hegseth would go on to accuse a number of other people for the leak, including Lt. Gen. Doug Sims, the Joint Staff director, who Hegseth also threatened with a polygraph test.”

“But for Hegseth, the episode marked a turning point in an already rocky tenure.“

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth directed the installation of Signal, a commercially available messaging app, on a desktop computer in his Pentagon office, illustrating the extent to which he has integrated use of the unclassified communications platform,” the Washington Post reports.

Multiple sources told CNN that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth “has grown increasingly paranoid about the potential of leaks to the media within the Pentagon and has begun largely depending on a small circle for counsel, including his wife.”

“Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently ordered modifications to a room next to the Pentagon press briefing room to retrofit it with a makeup studio that can be used to prepare for television appearances,” CBS News reports.

Tom Nichols: “Pete Hegseth was never qualified to be the secretary of defense. Donald Trump should never have nominated him, Hegseth should never have accepted the nomination, and the Senate should never have confirmed him.”

“Alas, qualifications, self-knowledge, and the courage of Senate Republicans are all things of the past, and for three months now, Hegseth has been a proven failure as a secretary of defense. If the president still refuses to fire him, he should resign.”

CNN: “Trump has since been soliciting feedback from people around him about Hegseth’s performance during conversations… So far, most, if not all, has been positive about the Pentagon chief. Trump is extremely hesitant to fire any Cabinet official at this point in his term, much less Hegseth, given how hard his team fought to get him confirmed in the first place.”

“Yet the state of affairs in his inner circle has troubled some senior officials who want to see changes made to how the secretary’s team in the front office of the Pentagon operates. The chaos prevailing at the Pentagon has not been lost on the White House, where officials have watched with concern as Hegseth struggles to contain the dysfunction and as his inner circle implodes.”

Politico: “Hegseth surrounded himself with advisers who quickly turned into vicious rivals for power — whose bitter brawl has now unraveled into revenge power plays, surprise firings, accusations of leaking and embarrassing headlines that are blowing up the Pentagon, distracting from Trump’s agenda and possibly jeopardizing Hegseth’s job.”