Nearly two dozen people were injured, including War Department employees, when two commuter buses crashed head-on at the Pentagon Metro Station Friday morning.
Authorities said that 18 people were transported to the hospital to get evaluated after the crash, and five people were treated on the scene, according to ABC&#8217;s <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/buses-collide-head-on-pentagon-arlington-washington-dc-bus-crash-injuries-fairfax-county-connector-omni-ride-south-parking-lot-bus-terminal">7News DC</a>. Ten of those injured in the crash were War Department employees, authorities said. The crash occurred at around 7:20 a.m. ET at the south parking lot of the Pentagon Metro Station.
The buses were traveling at low speed, and most of the injuries were minor, but at least one passenger was taken to a trauma center with more serious injuries, 7News reported.
Video footage showed one of the buses driving on the left side of the road as the other bus approaches.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="WATCH: Video shows bus crash that hurt 23 people near the Pentagon" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/f1uj9Af8EV4?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
Officials asked commuters to take alternate routes to the Pentagon as first responders and investigators remain on the scene.
The buses involved in the crash were an OmniRide bus and a Fairfax Connector transit bus.
This is a developing story and will be updated.

Pentagon Bus Crash

WATCH: Buses Crash Head-On Near Pentagon, Department Of War Personnel Injured

Car Crash

Department of War

Pentagon

U.S.

Washington D.C.

WASHINGTON—During a January meeting at the Pentagon, Vatican officials met with U.S. military leaders and discussed key national security objectives for the United States, according to a War Department official who was in the room.
Months later, the Free Press published an &#8220;expose&#8221; describing a reportedly contentious January meeting between a Vatican diplomat and Pentagon principal, as rumors of a rift between Washington and Rome have swirled.
But the Vatican, the Pentagon, and the American Ambassador to the Holy See all say the meeting was cordial and respectful. The parties involved have all made a public show of being friendly. And the contentious topic at the heart of the fracas — Pope Leo XIV&#8217;s criticism of military strikes in Iran — seems not to have come up at all.
So, what really happened?
The principals at the meeting were Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby and Cardinal Christophe Pierre, then the Vatican&#8217;s Apostolic Nuncio — functionally ambassador — to the United States. Both Colby and Pierre had staffers with them, The Daily Wire has learned.
American officials conveyed the administration&#8217;s position and intentions on Venezuela, Cuba, and other countries, and listened to the Vatican&#8217;s views on these topics.
&#8220;It was an attempt to engage seriously and respectfully with the Holy See&#8217;s position on matters relevant to the Department of War,&#8221; a War Department official who in the room for the January 22 meeting told The Daily Wire.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Under Secretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby <a href="https://twitter.com/USWPColby?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@USWPColby</a> had a substantive, respectful, and professional meeting with Cardinal Pierre, the then-Papal Nuncio, and his team on January 22, 2026. During the cordial meeting, they discussed a range of topics, including issues of… <a href="https://t.co/McI0sB2wKC">pic.twitter.com/McI0sB2wKC</a>
— DOW Rapid Response (@DOWResponse) <a href="https://twitter.com/DOWResponse/status/2042300020494418303?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 9, 2026</a></blockquote>
“We naturally, at the Department of War, in the Policy office, wanted to have a respectful discussion with the Vatican,&#8221; the official said. &#8220;Part of the role of Policy, in the Department of War, is to have dialogue between other nations on military matters.”
This is a stark contrast to The Free Press&#8217;s April 6 <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/why-the-vatican-and-the-white-house">report</a> that the Pentagon had summoned Pierre to the meeting, during which Colby and others chastised the cardinal and insisted that the United States &#8220;has the military power to do whatever it wants — and that the Church had better take its side.&#8221; Citing unnamed sources, the story also notes that Colby invoked the Avignon Papacy, a period in the 14th century in which the Holy See moved from Rome to France, where a series of popes were largely bent to the will of the French monarchy.
Mattia Ferraresi, the freelance contributor who authored The Free Press piece, suggested the Avignon Papacy reference was a veiled threat that the United States was willing to use its military power to &#8220;dominate the papal authority.&#8221;
Ferraresi, who told The Daily Wire on Friday he stands by his reporting, also casts Colby as belonging to &#8220;a cadre of Catholic and ostensibly dovish officials&#8221; allied with Vice President JD Vance &#8220;struggling to reconcile their isolationist instincts with the aggressive posture of a president who, within a single year, has bombed eight countries — with no sign of stopping.&#8221;
The Avignon Papacy storyline was amplified by Democrat operative Christopher Hale, who <a href="https://x.com/ChristopherHale/status/2041959904823366074?s=20">suggested in now viral tweets</a> that &#8220;many in the Vatican saw the Pentagon’s reference to an Avignon papacy as a threat to use military force against the Holy See.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/inside-the-infamous-meeting-between-the-vatican-and-the-pentagon/under-secretary-of-defense-for-policy-elbridge-colby-testifies-on-national-defense-strategy-during-senate-hearing" rel="attachment wp-att-1075509"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" class="wp-image-1075509 size-large aligncenter" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2264581833-851x576.jpg" alt="" width="851" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2264581833-851x576.jpg 851w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2264581833-300x203.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2264581833-768x520.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2026/04/GettyImages-2264581833.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 851px) 100vw, 851px" /></a>
In a statement, the Pentagon says Ferraresi&#8217;s characterization of the meeting was &#8220;highly exaggerated and distorted.&#8221;
&#8220;It is not unusual for Mr. Colby to have meetings with ambassadors,&#8221; that official noted, referencing the suggestion that the meeting was unprecedented. &#8220;He has often, at least one or two meetings with ambassadors from other nations a week. It&#8217;s certainly not unusual that we meet with ambassadors on these matters.&#8221;
&#8220;We invited them because we were interested in hearing the Vatican&#8217;s views,&#8221; the official explained, &#8220;and we wanted to convey the administration&#8217;s position, and intentions.&#8221;
&#8220;We talked about key American security objectives. Venezuela had just happened. We talked about that. We talked about this administration&#8217;s approach towards Europe, and NATO, Latin America. Also Cuba, Venezuela; the Vatican&#8217;s obviously very active in both those nations.&#8221;
Brian Burch, the United States Ambassador to the Holy See, spoke with Pierre on Thursday and shared their conversation in a public statement, saying that Pierre told him there was &#8220;no threat of Avignon&#8221; and that a &#8220;frank and cordial meeting that took place two months ago.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-media-max-width="560">
It could be said the US-Holy See relationship is much bigger than mere diplomatic relations. It is rooted in a civilizational idea that the Catholic Church helped advance, which the U.S. proudly inherited, and carries forth today. <a href="https://t.co/V7rfCU1jIY">https://t.co/V7rfCU1jIY</a>
— Ambassador Brian Burch (@BrianBurchUSA) <a href="https://twitter.com/BrianBurchUSA/status/2042649298265911391?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
&#8220;As expected, he confirmed that recent media characterizations of his meeting with Undersecretary Colby are &#8216;fabrications&#8217; that were &#8216;just invented,'&#8221; Burch said. &#8220;Given the intelligence and seriousness of Mr. Colby, I was likewise not surprised when His Eminence acknowledged there were no threats of any kind in the meeting.&#8221;
The cardinal and Burch have spoken regularly since Burch was nominated to become ambassador to the Holy See, Burch noted.
&#8220;When we disagree, we have done so with sincerity and respect,&#8221; he added. &#8220;I believe the same could be said of his January meeting with Undersecretary Colby. It’s regrettable that some journalists and online agitators chose to exploit a routine meeting to sow division between the Holy See and the United States.&#8221;
The Pentagon also characterized the meeting as &#8220;cordial,&#8221; &#8220;substantive, respectful, and professional&#8221; in a statement released Thursday — and called The Free Press report &#8220;grossly false and distorted.&#8221; 
&#8220;They discussed a range of topics, including issues of morality in foreign policy, the logic of the U.S. National Security Strategy, Europe, Africa, Latin America, and other topics,&#8221; the Pentagon statement said. &#8220;Cardinal Pierre expressed his appreciation for the outreach and both sides looked forward to continued open and respectful dialogue.&#8221;
And Vice President Vance, asked about the matter on Wednesday, told the press that he had not yet seen the reporting on the meeting: “I’d like to actually talk to Cardinal Christophe Pierre, and frankly, to our people, to figure out what actually happened.&#8221;
Pope Leo has repeatedly weighed in on the conflict in Iran, expressing hopes that the United States and Iran can come to an agreement &#8220;in a peaceful way&#8221; and condemning President Donald Trump for warning that a &#8220;whole civilization&#8221; would be wiped out if Iran did not agree to a peace plan.
But despite that criticism, both the White House and Vatican insist the parties have a positive relationship.
&#8220;Catholic Americans resoundingly supported President Trump in 2024, and the president’s administration has a positive relationship with the Vatican, which was strengthened when Vice President Vance attended the Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass last year,&#8221; White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said. &#8220;The President has done more than any of his predecessors to save lives and resolve global conflicts, and following the completion of his military objectives in Iran, he is hopeful that the agreement under discussion can lead to a lasting peace in the Middle East.”
&#8220;We have nothing but the highest regard and welcome continued dialogue with the Holy See,&#8221; the Pentagon added.
Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni also denied the reporting, <a href="https://cruxnow.com/vatican/2026/04/vatican-denies-media-spin-of-envoy-meeting-at-the-pentagon">saying Friday</a> that, “As confirmed by His Eminence Christophe Pierre … his meeting with Mr. Elbridge Andrew Colby was part of the papal representative’s regular mission and provided the opportunity for an exchange of views on matters of mutual interest.&#8221;
&#8220;The narrative offered by some media outlets about this meeting is completely untrue,&#8221; Bruni added.

VATICAN-RELIGION-POPE-CONCLAVE

Inside The Infamous Meeting Between The Vatican And The Pentagon

Catholic

The Vatican

War Secretary Pete Hegseth has asked Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George to step down and retire immediately, marking the latest shakeup at the Pentagon as the Trump administration moves to reshape military leadership.
According to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hegseth-ousts-army-chief-of-staff-gen-randy-george/">CBS News</a>, a senior War Department official said the move reflects a desire for new leadership aligned with the administration’s priorities. “We are grateful for his service, but it was time for a leadership change in the Army,” the official said.
George, a career infantry officer and West Point graduate, was nominated by former President Joe Biden and confirmed by the Senate in 2023. The position typically carries a four-year term, meaning George would ordinarily have served until 2027. He previously served as vice chief of staff of the Army and as senior military assistant to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell <a href="https://x.com/SeanParnellASW/status/2039812664902271107">confirmed</a> George’s retirement, thanking him for his decades of service. George’s career included deployments during Operation Desert Shield, Desert Storm, Operation Iraqi Freedom, and Operation Enduring Freedom.
Gen. Christopher LaNeve, the Army’s current vice chief of staff and a former military aide to Hegseth, will serve as acting chief of staff. Parnell described LaNeve as “a battle-tested leader” trusted to carry out the administration’s vision for the Army.
The decision comes as Hegseth has removed more than a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/hegseth-orders-chief-of-army-public-affairs-and-top-advisor-out-of-pentagon-staff?author=Drew+Berkemeyer&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=Hegseth+Just+Canned+Top+Pentagon+Official">dozen senior military officers</a> in recent months, including Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/trump-fires-joint-chiefs-chair-taps-air-force-lt-gen-dan-razin-caine-as-replacement">C.Q. Brown</a>, U.S. representative to NATO’s military council Vice Admiral <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pete-hegseth-axes-navy-official-who-promoted-gender-equality-and-womens-empowerment">Shoshana Chatfield</a>, and Defense Intelligence Agency Director Lt. Gen. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/pentagon-dia-iran-intelligence-trump-kruse-5cb1fb89b8f12c3b517f139f6d840b48">Jeffrey Kruse</a>.
While the move follows a recent dispute over an <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/kid-rock-sparks-military-investigation-after-wild-stunt-at-southern-white-house">Army helicopter flyover</a> near musician Kid Rock’s Nashville home, where Hegseth overruled the Army and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/army-takes-action-against-air-crews-flying-by-kid-rocks-southern-white-house-over-weekend">halted an investigation</a>, the decision to ask George to retire was not related to that incident.
George’s departure also comes amid a broader stretch of rapid developments inside the administration. On Wednesday, before the Pentagon shakeup came to light, President Donald Trump delivered a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/the-biggest-takeaways-from-trumps-iran-address-as-he-signals-next-moves">prime-time address</a> touting progress in ongoing operations against Iran, describing significant degradation of Iranian military capabilities while signaling the potential for further escalation, which may include Army operations.
At nearly the same time, Trump moved to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/pam-bondi-out-as-ag-following-months-of-epstein-controversy-criticism-over-lack-of-prosecutions">dismiss Attorney General Pam Bondi</a>, another high-profile personnel change that underscores the fast-moving nature of the administration’s second-term agenda. Reports indicate Bondi was informed of her removal shortly before the president’s address on progress in Iran, highlighting the compressed timeline of major decisions unfolding across both national security and domestic fronts.
Taken together, the developments point to an administration operating at an accelerated pace, reshaping leadership across the military and federal government while prosecuting an increasingly assertive foreign policy. George’s ouster, in that context, is not an isolated personnel move, but part of a broader effort to align key institutions with the administration’s strategic vision.
George’s departure underscores ongoing efforts by Pentagon leadership to install officials who will implement the administration’s broader vision for the military, as tensions between civilian leadership and uniformed officials continue to surface.

President Trump Meets With His Cabinet At The White House

Hegseth Removes Army’s Top General, Asks Him To Retire Immediately

Donald Trump

Executive

Pete Hegseth

Politics

Trump Administration

U.S. Army

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth revealed Tuesday that he recently made an undisclosed trip to multiple United States military bases throughout the Middle East to meet with troops and observe ongoing operations. 
“Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to visit our troops fighting in Operation Epic Fury,” Hegseth said during a Tuesday morning press briefing. “For reasons of operational security, so those troops are not targeted, the places and bases will not be named.”
“I had a chance to bear witness, and I witnessed the best of America. I witnessed warriors, a brotherhood of men and women, warriors all,” he added. “Active duty, Guard and reserve, united in their love for each other, their shared purpose, and their commitment to the mission.”
After the press briefing, Hegseth posted pictures from the trip on his social media. 
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
I witnessed warriors. A brotherhood of men and women &#8211; warriors all. <a href="https://t.co/S7cDcATpOI">pic.twitter.com/S7cDcATpOI</a>
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) <a href="https://twitter.com/SecWar/status/2038965468736716939?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
He described speaking with service members involved in strike missions, as well as personnel tasked with intercepting drones and missiles. 
“I spoke to Air Force and Navy pilots on the flight line who every day both deliver bombs deep into Iran but also shoot down drones defending their base. Many had just returned from the skies of Iran and Tehran,” Hegseth said. “I put on a headset and spoke to one crew in the cockpit, locked and loaded each and every day.”
Hegseth added that he spoke with an Army officer who had learned a new maneuver to neutralize Iranian missiles and another intelligence officer involved in targeting decisions. 
During the same briefing, Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan &#8220;Razin&#8221; Caine said American forces have struck more than 11,000 targets since the beginning of the war on February 28. 
Caine added that the Air Force had begun conducting overland B-52 missions and that more than 150 Iranian naval vessels had been destroyed as American forces expanded operations in the region.

MixCollage-31-Mar-2026-08-31-AM-6891

Hegseth Took Secret Middle East Trip To Visit Troops On ‘Epic Fury’ Front Lines

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A federal judge on Friday blocked the Trump administration&#8217;s restrictive Pentagon press access policy, which threatens journalists with being ​branded security risks if they seek information not authorized for public release.
The lawsuit by the New York Times in Washington, D.C., federal court alleged that policy changes by the Defense Department last year gave it free rein to freeze out reporters and news outlets over coverage the department did not like, in violation of the Constitution&#8217;s protections for free speech and due process. The government disputed that characterization and said the policy is reasonable and necessary for national security.
U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman said in his ruling that he recognized the importance of protecting troops and war plans but that it was &#8220;more important than ever that the public have access to information from a variety of perspectives about what its government is doing&#8221; in light of President Donald Trump&#8217;s recent &#8220;incursion&#8221; into Venezuela and war with Iran.
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said on social media that the government disagrees with the decision and will seek an immediate appeal.
New York Times spokesman Charlie Stadtlander said the ruling enforces constitutionally protected rights for the free press and &#8220;reaffirms the right of The Times and other independent media to continue to ask questions on the public&#8217;s behalf.&#8221;
&#8220;Americans deserve visibility into how their government is being run, and the actions the military is taking in their name and with their tax dollars,&#8221; Stadtlander said in a statement on Friday.
The changes approved under Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in October 2025 state that journalists can be deemed security risks and have their press badges revoked if they solicit unauthorized military personnel to disclose classified, and in some cases unclassified, information.
Of the 56 news outlets in the Pentagon Press Association, only one agreed to sign an acknowledgment of the new policy, according to the Times&#8217; lawsuit. Reporters who did not sign surrendered their press passes.
The Pentagon assembled a new press corps consisting of pro-Trump outlets and media personalities after the exodus of reporters, which the Times said was evidence that the policy was aimed at stifling unflattering coverage.
The policy states that publishing sensitive information &#8220;is generally protected by the First Amendment&#8221; but says soliciting that information could be considered by officials when determining whether a reporter poses a &#8220;security or safety risk.&#8221;
In its lawsuit, the Times said the policy unlawfully restricts essential newsgathering techniques and gives the Pentagon &#8220;unfettered&#8221; discretion to revoke passes, permitting it to impose the type of &#8220;viewpoint-based&#8221; press restrictions forbidden by the Constitution.
Justice Department lawyers acknowledged the policy was partly subjective but said press credentialing decisions were still governed by neutral, objective criteria. The government also said soliciting military personnel to commit a crime by disclosing unauthorized information was not legally protected speech.
In his ruling on Friday, Friedman said the policy violated the First and Fifth Amendments because it was vague, overly expansive and &#8220;makes any newsgathering and reporting not blessed by the Department&#8221; a possible basis for revocation of a journalist&#8217;s pass.
He also rejected the government&#8217;s argument that the policy is aimed at preventing criminal solicitation of defense secrets by journalists, saying it was impossible for reporters to know whether information they seek is authorized for release.
Freedom of the Press Foundation advocacy chief Seth Stern praised Friday&#8217;s ruling in a statement, saying it was &#8220;shocking&#8221; that the government had argued that &#8220;journalists asking questions of the government is criminal.&#8221;
The Associated Press has a pending lawsuit against Trump administration officials over its removal from the White House press corps after the news agency decided to continue using the Gulf of Mexico&#8217;s established ​name, while acknowledging Trump&#8217;s executive order calling on U.S. institutions to refer to it as the Gulf of America.
The AP said the decision was illegal viewpoint-based discrimination, while the government countered that it had wide discretion over press access decisions for non-public spaces.
(Reporting by Jack Queen in New York; Editing by Kate Mayberry and Rosalba O&#8217;Brien)

The Pentagon

Pentagon Pushes Back After Judge Rules Press Access Limits Unconstitutional

Courts

Free Speech

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I don&#8217;t pray to Jesus. I never have. I was raised in a tradition that predates Christianity by a millennium, and when I pray — which I do, regularly, seriously — I do it in Hebrew, facing Jerusalem, according to a liturgy my ancestors carried through exile and persecution for thousands of years.
And I have absolutely zero problem with Secretary of War Pete Hegseth closing a Pentagon press briefing by <a href="https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4438625/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-and-chairman-of-the-joint-chiefs-air-force-gen-da/">asking the American people</a> to pray &#8220;on bended knee, with your family, in your schools, in your churches, in the name of Jesus Christ&#8221; for the safety of our troops.
Not an iota of irritation. Not a teaspoon of tumult.
The outrage is a performance — and a particularly threadbare one, conjured in response to perhaps the most banal, good-faith, unambiguously decent request a public official has made in recent memory.
When Hegseth stood at that podium and invoked Christ&#8217;s name on behalf of men and women in harm&#8217;s way, he was drawing on something Americans have done since before there was an America. George Washington is remembered kneeling in the snow at Valley Forge. FDR led the entire nation in prayer on D-Day, asking God for strength and providence as young Americans stormed the beaches at Normandy. Patton once called his chaplain and asked, point blank, for a prayer for good weather. This is the tradition Hegseth reached for — long, deep, distinctly American — the instinct of a nation that has always understood that some moments call for more than a press release.
The critics sputtering this week would have you believe that a cabinet secretary expressing his Christian faith in public is somehow a threat. To whom, exactly — to me? I am one of the people they&#8217;d presumably be defending. I am a Jew in a country that is, by any honest accounting, a majority-Christian nation with a majority-Christian culture and a majority-Christian history. I have known this every day of my life. It has never made me feel like a second-class citizen, because that is not what minority rights actually mean.
Minority rights mean the government cannot compel me to convert. They mean I cannot be prosecuted for my religion, fired from a federal job because I observe Shabbat, or told to leave the country because I don&#8217;t accept the Nicene Creed. They mean I have the full protection of the law and the full dignity of citizenship regardless of my faith. That is the promise of America, and it is a magnificent one — imperfectly but genuinely kept.
What it does not mean is that we all must pretend America has no religious character. It does not mean a Christian official must sand his faith down to a fine, inoffensive powder before speaking in public. It does not mean that mentioning Jesus at a press conference is an act of aggression against anyone.
The conflation of those two things — genuine religious persecution versus a majoritarian culture expressing itself — is doing serious damage to our civic life. Every time a Christian politician prays in public, a certain class of commentator treats it as a prelude to theocracy. This is not only dishonest. It is, as a Jew, a little insulting. It flattens my actual history — a history of pogroms and inquisitions and gas chambers — and asks me to treat a Pentagon official&#8217;s invocation of Christ as a comparable offense. I decline.
There is something else worth saying here. Every Saturday morning, in synagogues across America — certainly in mine — we recite a prayer for the safety of the United States Armed Forces. We do this whether American troops are in active combat or not. We do this because we understand, in the marrow of our tradition, that the soldiers who stand between a free society and its enemies deserve our gratitude and our supplication before God. Pete Hegseth was asking the American people to do what Jews have been doing in shul every week for generations. I recognize the impulse. I share it.
And this: if the worst my government is guilty of is asking faithful Americans to bend their knee in prayer and petition God for the safety of our troops, I will recommit myself to that government every day, and twice on Saturday. More Americans engaging in prayer can only be a positive movement for the nation.
The faith Hegseth expressed — one that asks its adherents to appeal to God on behalf of soldiers who may not come home — is not my enemy. It never has been.
America is a country where Christians pray, where Christian faith shapes public life, where references to Jesus are woven into the culture from the Pledge to the presidency. That is not a grievance. It is simply what a majority-Christian democracy looks like. A proud, observant Jew — or a Muslim, or a Buddhist, or an atheist — can accept that reality without feeling diminished by it. In fact, intellectual honesty requires it.
The capacity to hold both things at once — to cherish the legal protections that shield the minority while accepting the cultural reality of the majority — is one of the more demanding things American pluralism asks of us. It is also non-negotiable. It is the deal.
Hegseth asked people to pray for our troops. I hope they do. I will be saying my own prayers for those soldiers — in my own tradition, as I do each day.
* * *
Daniella Greenbaum Davis is an Emmy-award winning producer and communications strategist. Follow her on X: @DGreenbaum
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Secretary Of War Hegseth And Joint Chiefs Chairman General Caine Hold Briefing On Iran War

I’m Jewish. I Have No Problem With Hegseth’s Prayer.

I'm Jewish. I Have No Problem With Hegseth's Prayer.

Christianity

Jewish

Opinion

Prayer

U.S. Military

America’s defense sector should be focused on one thing above all else: building the most effective weapons systems, technologies, and capabilities in the world. At a time of mounting geopolitical tension and growing threats from major adversaries, the companies responsible for equipping the United States military cannot afford to be distracted by the woke ideologies that have consumed so much of corporate America.
As Secretary of War Pete Hegseth often says, “We want you fighting real wars, not culture wars.”
That’s a conversation we’ve been having with America’s biggest defense contractors for the past year. As corporate engagement professionals, we represent a clientele that ranges from major nonprofits to ordinary American investors, all united around one cause: getting politics out of corporate America. 
Nowhere, with the possible exception of health care, is this more critical than in our defense sector. As America protects its interests against one of our most outspoken geopolitical rivals, it’s abundantly clear that the companies behind our most advanced military capabilities need to be focused on creating powerful, innovative, and effective defense technology that defies our enemies and ensures continued American dominance.
Yet, to look at the past several years of activism in corporate America, it’s not entirely clear we’ve all been on the same page about that. For years, activists have been pounding on the doors of the American boardroom, attempting to foist a plethora of profoundly absurd ideas onto the companies tasked with protecting the country.
Perhaps part of that willingness comes as a consequence of just how bad the ideas from the other side have been. Many have been putting <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/06/21/inside-bds-lefts-sneaky-targeting-israel-via-corporate-boardrooms/">anti-Israel proposals</a> on corporate ballots at companies, including Intel and Lockheed Martin, arguing for a reassessment of their relationship with Israel, and pushing for increasing numbers of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. These activists’ arguments are often simple, if not wildly anti-business: cut ties with Israel to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-esg-scores-became-the-new-weapon-in-the-war-on-israel">keep a good ESG score</a>. Implement more DEI initiatives or partnerships with organizations that <a href="https://www.dailysignal.com/2024/06/21/inside-bds-lefts-sneaky-targeting-israel-via-corporate-boardrooms/">push gender ideology</a>, in order to demonstrate good corporate citizenship. 
These arguments ignore the fact that Lockheed’s and Intel’s relationships with Israel are major drivers of business value. They do not address the brand damage created by controversial corporate partnerships and divisive DEI initiatives in the workplace. They do not address the obvious moral questions of withholding critical defense infrastructure from a nation fighting a war against terrorist organizations seeking their annihilation. They do, however, parrot standard-issue talking points while calling for these companies to ditch major investments or adopt diversity programming that is difficult to justify on fiduciary grounds.
DEI quotas. Divestment based on politics. Dubious gender transition treatments. What you might think, from looking at that fairly diverse (no pun intended) slate of demands, is that those are different coalitions trying to drag American businesses off course. And in certain ways, they are. But in a very critical way, they all share one idea in common: that the business of defending the homeland isn’t enough.
As a director of corporate engagement firm Bowyer Research, I meet with companies to defend the opposite idea: core business is enough — and the notion that you have to add abortion reimbursement or DEI questionnaires to a corporation to make it moral is beyond ridiculous. And, unsurprisingly, the defense sector’s been quite on board with that idea.
We’ve been having <a href="https://bowyerresearch.substack.com/p/our-message-to-lockheed-martin-we">conversations</a> on these issues with some of America’s most prominent federal contractors, such as Lockheed Martin, RTX, General Dynamics, and others, urging them to distance themselves from past DEI initiatives, continue saying no to anti-Israel activism, and prioritize their core business. This work has been driven by our clients, including nonprofits such as <a href="https://www.heritage.org/press/heritage-enhances-free-enterprise-efforts-new-initiative-and-expanded-team">The Heritage Foundation</a> and financial professionals such as <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/a-report-card-on-corporate-america/">David Bahnsen</a>, using their investment portfolios to engage with management at the companies they own.
This process, called corporate engagement, has, until recently, been almost exclusively the domain of left-of-center, ESG-aligned, DEI-aligned activist groups in past years. But no longer. The right-of-center is waking up and <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/why-the-pro-sanity-coalition-is-winning-again-in-corporate-america?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=3&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Why+The+Pro-Sanity+Coalition+Is+Winning+Again+In+Corporate+America">having tremendous success</a> in rolling back many biased policies implemented in past years. And this momentum has only been helped by President Trump’s 2025 <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/ending-radical-and-wasteful-government-dei-programs-and-preferencing/">executive order</a> rolling back government DEI initiatives. Lockheed Martin suspended identity-based employee workforce groups. RTX <a href="https://www.them.us/story/human-rights-campaign-hrc-northrop-grumman-rtx-weapons-manufacturers">exited</a> controversial public partnerships with groups such as the Human Rights Campaign, a <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/corporate-america-quietly-backs-away-from-gender-ideology-for-children?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=Corporate+America+Quietly+Backs+Away+From+Gender+Ideology+For+Children">major promoter</a> of gender ideology. Boeing disclosed it would no longer incorporate DEI into its executive pay structure. And Texas Instruments <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/capital-record/a-report-card-on-corporate-america/">stopped</a> using the Southern Poverty Law Center’s ‘hate group’ list, which <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/how-the-southern-poverty-law-center-poisoned-corporate-america?author=Isaac+Willour&amp;category=News&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Vertical+List&amp;title=How+The+Southern+Poverty+Law+Center+Poisoned+Corporate+America">smears</a> mainstream conservative organizations like Turning Point USA and Alliance Defending Freedom as hateful, to vet charities.
Engaging with the defense sector about returning to political neutrality has largely been a good-faith effort. Companies have been willing to have serious conversations about making changes. Why? Beyond compliance, our engagement is often seen as a breath of fresh air — a welcome change from the activists who want defense companies to divest from our allies, adopt DEI agendas, and… do less defense. This is corporate engagement at its best: in our uncertain world, and amid a multiplicity of threats to the American way of life, genuine investors are asking companies to reaffirm and stand by their core business model: national defense, and with it the continuation of the greatest nation in the history of our species.
You don’t need supplier quotas or activist pledges to run that play. You need grit, determination, and merit to run that play with the American people in mind. And right now, America’s defenders are doing just that.
* * *
Isaac Willour is the director of corporate engagement at Bowyer Research, representing institutional investors before America’s biggest companies. He writes frequently on issues pertaining to business, faith, and culture, and can be found on X <a href="https://x.com/IsaacWillour">@IsaacWillour</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

FRANCE-POLITICS-DEFENCE-US-LOCKHEED

America’s Defense Sector Is Ditching DEI At The Best Possible Moment

Corporations

Defense

Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI)

Lockheed Martin

Woke Culture

Critics of the War Department&#8217;s purchase of steak and lobster have largely fallen silent in the face of overwhelming evidence that this is standard practice for troops about to deploy. But while they were going, they were loud — and they were all Democrats.
 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) blasted War Secretary Pete Hegseth on social media and accused him of wasting taxpayer money on luxuries such as “fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan king crabs, and a Steinway &amp; Sons grand piano.”
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hegseth spent $93 billion in one month – roughly the cost of extending the ACA tax credits for THREE YEARS.
But instead of lowering American’s healthcare costs, Hegseth used millions of taxpayer dollars on fruit baskets, Herman Miller recliners, ice cream machines, Alaskan… <a href="https://t.co/bdCHRWip3P">https://t.co/bdCHRWip3P</a>
— Chuck Schumer (@SenSchumer) <a href="https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/2031497646892872011?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
California Governor Gavin Newsom similarly circulated a <a href="https://x.com/GovPressOffice/status/2031441496801529864">viral post</a> accusing the Pentagon of blowing through $93 billion in spending during a single month.
By now, countless commentators have pointed out that there&#8217;s nothing unusual about serving steak and lobster to troops on the verge of deploying. Military leaders have <a href="https://www.army.mil/article/284118/food_connects_us_nutrition_community_important_for_service_members">frequently emphasized</a> that small comforts can have an outsized impact on morale, particularly for troops stationed overseas or serving in stressful environments. And, according to a recent analysis from government watchdog group <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/pentagon-should-focus-on-defense">Open the Books,</a> the War Department purchased much of its steak and lobster towards the end of the last fiscal year, when federal agencies often accelerate purchases before budgets reset.
Faced with all this evidence, critics have been eating crow. But perhaps they should also eat fungus.
In 2024, the Biden Defense Department awarded nearly $1.5 million to The Better Meat Company, a California firm that develops alternative protein products using fungal roots grown in bioreactors. The company’s process feeds water and nutrients to the fungus in a fermentation tank, producing a gray semi-solid material that can be processed into protein ingredients.
Pentagon officials at the time insisted the project was not intended to place synthetic meat substitutes in soldiers’ Meals Ready-to-Eat (MREs). Instead, a Pentagon spokesman said the funding supported a facility for producing shelf-stable protein ingredients that could help sustain troops deployed around the world.
“Where was the outrage when the Biden administration wanted to force-feed franken-meat to America’s military heroes?&#8221; Jack Hubbard, executive director of the watchdog Center for the Environment and Welfare, said. &#8220;&#8216;Ick&#8217; factor aside, there are no long-term health studies on the effects of lab-grown meat. Our armed forces deserve better.”
Hegseth has made combating the Biden administration&#8217;s woke policies central to his mission at the helm of the War Department, saying that doing so boosts morale and makes the country safer.
“We became the woke department. But not anymore,” Hegseth said during a 2025 <a href="https://www.war.gov/News/Transcripts/Transcript/Article/4318689/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-addresses-general-and-flag-officers-at-quantico-v/">address</a> to generals and flag officers. “This administration has done a great deal from day one to remove the social justice, politically correct, and toxic ideological garbage that had infected our department, to rip out the politics.”
Hegseth added that the effort included eliminating programs he said distracted from the military’s core mission.
“No more identity months, DEI offices, dudes in dresses. No more climate change worship. No more division, distraction, or gender delusions,” he said. “As I&#8217;ve said before and will say again, we are done with that sh*t. I&#8217;ve made it my mission to uproot the obvious distractions that made us less capable and less lethal.”

US-IRAN-CONFLICT-DEFENSE

FLASHBACK: Dems Outraged Over Surf And Turf For Troops Were OK Feeding Them Fungus

Chuck Schumer

Food

After years of ignoring — and often enabling — fraud, waste, and abuse, many Democrat officials and left-wing pundits have finally found what they consider to be a financial “scandal” worth caring about: Secretary of War Pete Hegseth’s end-of-fiscal-year spending included just over $20 million in ribeye steaks, lobster tails, and crab legs.
Assuming these expenses must have been for lavish nonsense, Democrats from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to California Governor Gavin Newsom sprang to social media, mocking Hegseth, heaping scorn on the Trump administration, and promising a full-scale congressional investigation.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
In addition to billions of taxpayer dollars being burned in this war in Iran, reports are showing that Sec. Pete Hegseth blew $93 billion in federal DOD funding at the end of last year on:
$3.5 billion for cable TV 
$225 million for furniture 
$15.1 million for ribeye steaks 
$6.9…
— Rep. Melanie Stansbury (@Rep_Stansbury) <a href="https://twitter.com/Rep_Stansbury/status/2031500011700367429?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @Rep_Stansbury/X.com
None of them stopped to ask why the Department of War might spend this money on “surf and turf.” Longtime Democrat consultant Paul Begala, former chief strategist for Bill Clinton, even insisted in a ridiculous cable news display that Secretary Hegseth was eating all the steak and lobster himself.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
CNN&#8217;s Paul Begala falsely claims Pete Hegseth purchased ribeye steaks and lobster tails for himself, not the troops.
Scott Jennings, &#8220;Internet do something.&#8221;
Here are the receipts: <a href="https://t.co/VZ6j4j2sn2">pic.twitter.com/VZ6j4j2sn2</a>
— Thomas Hern (@ThomasMHern) <a href="https://twitter.com/ThomasMHern/status/2031911892109721777?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @ThomasMHern/X.com
In their desperation to dunk on the Trump administration, Democrats humiliated themselves, insulted America’s servicemen, and reminded the general public of previous “waste, fraud, and abuse” they had endorsed, hid, and protected themselves – while illustrating just how little they understand the American military.
A <a href="https://openthebooks.substack.com/p/pentagon-should-focus-on-defense">March 9 opinion piece</a> by Open the Books, a government spending and campaign finance watchdog group, criticized spending reports from the Department of War near the end of September 2025 — near the end of the fiscal year — which listed several purchases in the millions of dollars for fine foods, technology, and furniture. These included $2 million on Alaskan king crabs, $6.9 million on lobster tails, $15.1 million on ribeye steaks, $1 million on salmon, and several hundreds of thousands of dollars on desserts.
To the average American, this is meant to sound bizarre and corrupt. Are generals, admirals, and Pentagon bureaucrats feasting on surf-and-turf nightly? That’s what Open the Books’ report, subsequent legacy media meltdowns, and Democrat officials’ craven pearl clutching is intending to convey. Just look at Newsom’s “Press Office” account on X, picturing AI slop of Hegseth reclining amid piles of lobster tail.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
HEGSETH BLOWING $93 BILLION OF TAXPAYER DOLLARS IN 1 MONTH !! <a href="https://t.co/L8GmyWQ2bt">pic.twitter.com/L8GmyWQ2bt</a>
— Governor Newsom Press Office (@GovPressOffice) <a href="https://twitter.com/GovPressOffice/status/2031441496801529864?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 10, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Source: @GovPressOffice/X.com
Even the libertarians got in on the lie, with Reason’s Eric Boehm <a href="https://reason.com/2026/03/11/war-rations/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=reason_brand&amp;utm_content=autoshare&amp;utm_term=post">fabricating a thumbnail</a> showing the Secretary of War at a table with a bright red lobster in front of him using Midjourney AI.
Far-left outlets like The New Republic attempted to whip this assertion into a frenzy, <a href="https://newrepublic.com/post/207555/pete-hegseth-billions-dollars-fruit-basket-stands-chairs-crab">claiming</a> “a good chunk of the budget wasn’t used for anything that could be considered a pertinent military expense,” thereby implying soldiers are left with MREs while the brass enjoys Hunger Games-in-the-Capital-style feasting.
But if this was all true, it wouldn’t just be liberal Karens and Democrat officials shouting about it — it would include the voices of angry former servicemen, veterans outraged over such frivolous spending.
It didn’t, because they know this is all a lie.
Serving surf-and-turf to troops — <a href="https://x.com/EODHappyCaptain/status/2031519972447465799?s=20">lobster tail</a>, <a href="https://x.com/infantrydort/status/2031495562072060271?s=20">crab legs</a>, ribeye steaks — right before deployment or after a stressful mission is a tried and true tradition of the United States military, not to mention a few American civilian and military contracting groups, too. With many units, <a href="https://x.com/MostlyPeaceful/status/2031800839455613332?s=20">surf-and-turf Fridays</a> are a common and well-deserved expense for our men and women in uniform.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
To all the idiots criticizing the pentagon for surf and turf here’s a story for you <a href="https://t.co/ZsC7JYI4dI">pic.twitter.com/ZsC7JYI4dI</a>
— Joey Jones (@Johnny_Joey) <a href="https://twitter.com/Johnny_Joey/status/2032120815781564850?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2026</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
It has long been an inside joke, a meme among America’s troops, to <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DNi_o4uy1WZ/?hl=en">beware being served the surf-and-turf</a> before a long briefing with battalion staff. Similar memes, videos, and jokes have long <a href="https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFjEAlNuq82/">celebrated camaraderie</a> over surf-and-turf following a large operation.
And this is just what our nation’s veterans ruthlessly mocked Democrats with all over social media.
The lack of self-respect in most of this reporting is simply pathetic. Eric’s Reason was comfortable enough with the deliberately misleading assertion to AI generate a picture for it (strange we couldn’t get photo after photo from Getty Images or Reuters of Hegseth chowing down on lobster tail, considering how much of it he apparently devours!), but had to cover his tracks later in the article.
All of this consternation about government spending is part of Democrats’ absurd pivot away from all the waste and fraud in the welfare programs they have favored for years. Where was their objection to the USAID revelations showing the millions upon millions the Biden administration had spent on transgender theater in South America, “Iraqi Sesame Street” for the Middle East, or spreading atheism in Nepal? Where was <a href="https://x.com/MollyJongFast/status/2031402915731034131?s=20">Molly Jong Fast’s criticism</a> of Pete Buttigieg spending almost $7.5 billion on just eight charging stations at random interstate rest stops?
All of the sudden, I’m supposed to be outraged because Hegseth’s Department of War spent money on giving our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines, guardians, and coastguardsmen a decent meal? Do these weeping masses of outrage buying ice cream machines not remember that the United States had multiple Navy craft dedicated to delivering ice cream to our troops during the Second World War?
When billions in grants go to NGOs, fraudulent programs, and silly social adventures, the Department of War can afford to spend a drop in the bucket to give our troops a decent meal, replace old phones, computers, and furniture, or (God forbid) replace a piano.
Our troops deserve better than a nothingburger. Give them a good steak and some lobster. They deserve it.
* * *
Tony Kinnett is the host of The Tony Kinnett Cast at The Daily Signal. Connect with him on X: <a href="http://twitter.com/thetonus">@TheTonus</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

Soldier in tactical gloves holding canned MRE food.

Surf-And-Turfgate: Democrats Melt Down Over Steak And Lobster For Our Heroes

Defense Spending

Democrats

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth said Tuesday would mark the “most intense” day of strikes against Iran since the launch of the joint U.S.-Israeli military operation. 
“Today will be yet again our most intense day of strikes inside Iran: the most fighters, the most bombers, the most strikes, intelligence, more refined, and better than ever,” Hegseth said during a press briefing Tuesday morning. “On the other hand, the last 24 hours have seen Iran fire the lowest number of missiles they&#8217;ve been capable of firing yet.”
During the same briefing, General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said more than 5,000 Iranian targets have been struck since the operation began. He also said that Air Force bombers had dropped dozens of 2,000-pound GPS-guided penetrating weapons on deeply buried missile launchers in recent days. 
“On day 10 of Operation Epic Fury, we are winning with an overwhelming and unrelenting focus on our objectives,” Hegseth said. “No hesitation, no half measures. As President Trump declared yesterday, we&#8217;re crushing the enemy in an overwhelming display of technical skill and military force. We will not relent until the enemy is totally and decisively defeated.”
Hegseth also defended the U.S. military&#8217;s record on minimizing civilian casualties. 
“No nation takes more precautions to ensure there is never targeting of civilians than the U.S.,” he said. “From the boat strikes in the Caribbean to this campaign here, no nation in the history of warfare has ever attempted in every way possible to avoid civilian casualties.”
Hegseth added that the U.S. military investigates any incidents where questions arise.
“It’s a point that isn’t appreciated enough,” he said. “Where things happen that need to be investigated, we’ll investigate.”
Those comments came after the Pentagon said it was investigating reports that an Iranian girls&#8217; school had been struck during the operation. 
During the briefing, Caine and Hegseth outlined the three primary objectives of the campaign. First, Caine said the goal was to destroy Iran’s ballistic missile and drone capabilities to prevent attacks on U.S. forces and regional partners.
“That means attacking launch sites, command and control nodes, and stockpiles before they can threaten our personnel, our facilities, and our partners,” he said.
Second, Caine said the U.S. military is targeting Iran’s naval forces while protecting shipping lanes through the Strait of Hormuz. 
The third goal, Caine said, is targeting Iran’s military and industrial base, including weapons production facilities, research sites, and related infrastructure.

Secretary Pete Hegseth Hosts Americas Counter Cartel Conference In Florida

Pentagon: Most Punishing U.S. Strikes Yet On Iran Happening Now

Dan Caine

Defense officials were pushing for unrestricted lawful use of Anthropic’s AI models. Anthropic agreed—with two caveats. The leading AI company did not want its technology deployed for autonomous weapons systems or for mass domestic surveillance. The Biden administration previously agreed to these terms under a contract in 2024, but Trump administration Undersecretary of War Emil Michael is pushing back.
“I looked at the contracts and was like, holy cow. You can’t use them to plan a kinetic strike. You can’t use their AI model to move a satellite,” Michael said, arguing that the terms are incompatible with the Pentagon’s mission.
“I need to have terms of service be rational relative to our mission set,” he added.
Negotiations reached a climax when the Department of War designated Anthropic as a &#8220;supply-chain risk.&#8221; Historically, that label has only been used for foreign companies. 
During talks, Anthropic agreed to make exceptions to their rules for certain scenarios, such as planning for a drone swarm or responding to a Chinese hypersonic missile—but those carve-outs were not enough for the Pentagon.
“The exceptions [don&#8217;t] work,” said the undersecretary of War. “I cannot predict for the next twenty years all the things we might use AI for, so all lawful use seems like a good thing. If Congress wants to act, great. We have our own internal policies; we’ll follow them. It’s our province to decide how we fight and win wars.”
Michael also raised concerns about operational risk.
&#8220;If they&#8217;re willing to impose red lines that limit lawful military use, what&#8217;s to stop them from enforcing a shutdown if they disagree with how we&#8217;re applying it?” He added, “If in the middle of an operation they decide it violates something and shut it down, that&#8217;s not just unreliable—it&#8217;s dangerous to the troops depending on it.&#8221;
Senior employees at Anthropic have <a href="https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=cd133ae2d49e3551&amp;rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS1183US1185&amp;sxsrf=ANbL-n6QiThSAILMq57dIAMIniqyHLAwXw:1772902370049&amp;udm=7&amp;fbs=ADc_l-aN0CWEZBOHjofHoaMMDiKpaEWjvZ2Py1XXV8d8KvlI3ppPEReeCOS7s1VbbZz2TLt2sOibMbYx2XAHg-v8xM5VswWDsYo9WtqkvCRRg9-K9YK9-rwJY6otdILLcL1llHf6wa6fD9SWKWQ3hafveoFnDlzP7RXdVXDjm5FT8bTXZrAumtXaqFa-mzfvg6g4QfqAeDxEdIS5054TbMKRJVNt4dwQNA&amp;q=tarun+chhabra&amp;sa=X&amp;sqi=2&amp;ved=2ahUKEwjh0_P_n46TAxXiMlkFHZPEDdEQtKgLegQIFRAB&amp;biw=706&amp;bih=775&amp;dpr=2#fpstate=ive&amp;vld=cid:ee0a1859,vid:09BzmFm6lDU,st:0">publicly acknowledged</a> the company restricts model access when it believes usage violates its policies.
“We know what Russia and China and North Korea and others are trying to do with these models right now. We catch them. We turn it off,” said Tarun Chhabra, a senior member of Anthropic’s national security team, a team involved in negotiations with the Pentagon. Chhabra previously served as a member of Biden’s National Security Council.
Trump administration AI Czar David Sacks has stated that Biden-era policies would cause America to lose the global artificial intelligence race and <a href="https://x.com/DavidSacks/status/2028160240974188590">highlighted</a> that many Biden AI staffers have joined Anthropic. &#8220;Guess where those Biden AI staffers went to work as soon as the admin was over? Anthropic.&#8221;
Biden alum Elizabeth Kelly currently leads Anthropic&#8217;s Beneficial Deployments team and Biden&#8217;s special assistant Benjamin Merkel serves as a legislative analyst.
Anthropic told The Daily Wire that while the company has employed staff from the Biden administration, they recently appointed Trump alum Chris Liddell to the company&#8217;s board of directors.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei added that despite the Trump administration&#8217;s unprecedented decision to deem his company a supply-chain risk, the company will allow the Pentagon to continue using its technology. 
“We have offered continuity. We&#8217;re actually deeply concerned about this. We&#8217;re deeply concerned about the kind of interruption of service, which is exactly what&#8217;s happening when we&#8217;re designated a supply chain risk,” Amodei <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-full-transcript/">said</a>.
Secretary of War Pete Hegeseth <a href="https://x.com/SecWar/status/2027507717469049070">confirmed</a> the continued usage, saying, “Anthropic will continue to provide the Department of War its services for a period of no more than six months to allow for a seamless transition to a better and more patriotic service.”
​​Michael explained the unprecedented designation is needed because he didn’t want the risk of Anthropic’s policy bias to enter into any part of the defense enterprise. “If their model has this policy bias based on their constitution, their culture, their people, I don’t want Lockheed Martin using their model to design weapons for me.”
Dean Ball, a former Trump administration official who left his AI advisory position six months ago, said he sympathizes with Anthropic’s stance.
“I’m very sympathetic to—if I built something that was powerful and dangerous and uncertain, and the government was excitedly buying it for uses that could be very profound in how they affect people’s lives—wanting to be very careful that I didn’t sell them something that went horribly [expletive] wrong. And then I am blamed for it by the public and by the government,&#8221; said Ball.
Anthropic’s position differs from other AI companies. Elon Musk’s Grok and Google’s Gemini agreed the Pentagon could use their software for all lawful use cases.
Anthropic CEO Amodei <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/anthropic-ceo-dario-amodei-full-transcript/">told</a> CBS his hesitation to give the Pentagon full lawful use of Anthropic’s technology is because the &#8220;technology is not ready.&#8221; He added, “We don&#8217;t want to sell something that we don&#8217;t think is reliable, and we don&#8217;t want to sell something that could get our own people killed or that could get innocent people killed.”
Secretary of War Hegseth <a href="https://x.com/SecWar/status/2027507717469049070">argues</a> that unelected tech executives such as Amodei should not make that call and should leave operational risk decisions to the United States military, and ultimately, President Trump.
“The Commander-in-Chief and the American people alone will determine the destiny of our armed forces, not unelected tech executives,&#8221; he stated.

Anthropic AI – Photo Illustration

Are Biden-Era AI Ties Behind Pentagon Showdown In Trump’s War Department?

Artificial Intelligence

Biden Administration

The most significant threat to the United States military is the strategic divide between the citizen and the soldier, a distance that has only increased in recent decades as more and more Americans live removed from military life. A peek under the hood at the military planning apparatus can create an eye-opening experience for many otherwise well-informed citizens. Such is the case with a controversy that has spread like wildfire through the pages of Reddit and posts on X since the current Iran Operation began, focused on the infamous Millennium Challenge wargame, and particularly the approach of Marine Lieutenant General Paul Van Riper.
During peacetime, the military professionals of this country conduct serious and deliberate research in an attempt to understand “What is the American way of war? What are its strengths and weaknesses?” Far from an academic exercise, this self-understanding is vital to winning our nation’s wars. As American bombs fall on Tehran and our Navy dismantles what remains of Iran’s fleet, most Americans are watching the explosions without understanding the decades of quiet work that made this moment possible.
In the summer of 2002, the Pentagon conducted a $250 million exercise called Millennium Challenge, the most expensive war game in American history. A retired Marine Lieutenant General named Paul Van Riper was chosen to command the opposing force (a thinly veiled Iran). Van Riper was brilliant, aggressive, and innovative. He used motorcycle couriers instead of radios and signaled attacks from mosque loudspeakers. He launched swarms of suicide boats and a massive cruise missile salvo against a carrier battle group inside the Persian Gulf. In the first hours of the exercise, he sank sixteen warships and killed over twenty thousand Americans on paper. 
This was an astounding result. The exercise was halted, the ships “refloated,” and the game restarted with a script guaranteeing an American victory. Van Riper struggled under increasing “control mechanisms,” which he viewed as unfair, and then stepped down as the OPFOR commander mid-exercise.
The conventional reading of Millennium Challenge is that it was an expensive embarrassment. On the one hand, critics posited that Pentagon brass couldn’t stomach honest results, and more conservative voices faulted Van Riper for “breaking” the exercise. The latter argued that the simulation had been exploited: small boat swarms carrying unrealistically large explosive loads, couriers simulated as instantaneous, and air forces conjured from nowhere. They opined that Van Riper was overplaying. They pointed to Operation Praying Mantis in 1988, and later the events of April 2024. When Iran launched over three hundred drones and missiles at Israel in April 2024, 99% of them were intercepted. The pattern held in October 2024 and the Twelve-Day War of June 2025. Every real-world test confirmed what skeptics argued: Iran could never execute the Van Riper playbook.
Here is what amateurs and skeptics miss. The military effectiveness of Operation Epic Fury is precisely because Van Riper played the enemy so aggressively. This is why we were prepared.
Every day for decades, gray-faced staff officers swiped into the CENTCOM compound in Tampa and burned the midnight oil for uncelebrated hours upon hours to develop solutions to Millennium Challenge — think of it as the equivalent of the Kobayashi Maru. The 752-page JFCOM after-action report acknowledged what Van Riper had proven: that a 24-hour notice to Iran could be devastating to the United States; that we must focus on anti-access threats consistently; and that we lacked deployment agility and needed to take care in our basing.
These findings became vital data points to planners. Across two decades, posture was developed in depth, we upgraded our weapons (Arrow-3, upgraded Aegis), ringed the Gulf with THAAD batteries, and refined counter-drone and counter-small-boat technologies. We stopped giving adversaries twenty-four-hour ultimatums. We increased carrier standoff. All measures built against the Van Riper challenge. That is the legacy of Millennium Challenge ‘02.
There is a growing chasm in this country between those who serve and those who don’t, and nowhere is it wider than in understanding what the military does when it isn’t fighting. There are no movies or medals for the men and women who spend careers in the windowless vaults at CENTCOM, producing war plans upon contingencies, upon war plans upon contingencies — all classified, most never executed, none glamorous. I was one of them. What those planners do, year after year, is imagine the worst scenarios and build the architecture to defeat them. The dominance you are witnessing against Iran was not born on February 28, 2026. It was born in those vaults, over decades, by people whose names you will never know.
A perceptive cynic might see this as the self-gratifying sentiment of a retired Colonel, and maybe so. More importantly, however, with Operation Epic Fury, we are answering one of our own vital questions: “What is the American way of war?” It is an opportunity for an honest reckoning of where we excel and a humble review of where we falter.
We are outstanding planners, inheritors of the discipline of Alfred von Schlieffen and the foresight of the Rainbow Plans of the 1920s. Give America two decades to plan a theater war against a known adversary, and we will execute with devastating precision. No nation on earth comes close. But we ought to pause and ask harder questions about how we respond to the unexpected. We should ask ourselves whether we are a one-trick pony — vulnerable to conflicts in places that don’t look like the National Training Center at Barstow, against enemies we haven’t spent a generation gaming out. Today, we recognize the gift that preparation gives us.
Twenty-four years ago, Paul Van Riper sank our fleet on a computer screen, and a lot of very serious people in concrete rooms took notice. As a community, we studied his moves, debated their veracity, and then built systems to counter them. We war-gamed and rehearsed his tactics until the countermoves became doctrine and the doctrine became muscle memory. Now, Iran has attempted the real thing by unleashing drone swarms, missile barrages, closing the Strait of Hormuz, and conducting attacks across the Gulf. All of which are being decisively defeated.
So today, we owe our thanks and gratitude to Lt. Gen. Van Riper. His courage and insight fueled every nameless planner who will walk through the CENTCOM gates next month and do it all again — because that is what makes victory possible.
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COL (ret) Alexander “Xander” Bullock served in the U.S. Army from 1997-2024, with a tour at U.S. Central Command from 2016–2020 as a logistics planner, logistics operations officer, and advisor in the CENTCOM Commander’s Action Group.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

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