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    Loyalty matters most in race to become Trump’s next national security adviser

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    The race is officially on to become Donald Trump’s next national security adviser – but in this White House, the personalities and egos surrounding the president can matter far more than the titles they hold.Speaking from Air Force One on Sunday evening, Trump suggested secretary of state Marco Rubio could continue to double-hat as the interim national security adviser. But he also praised Stephen Miller, whom he said was “at the top of the totem pole” for the appointment and said he was in effect already doing the job.“I think he sort of indirectly already has that job … because he has a lot to say about a lot of things,” Trump said of Miller on board Air Force One. “He’s a very valued person in the administration, Stephen Miller.”Rubio will have around six months to test drive the dual roles. “A lot of people say it really works in with what Marco is doing,” he said. “But we have a lot of people. I’m going to be naming somebody.”The two men represent distinct wings of Trump’s Republican support: Rubio is a former rival who has tried to shapeshift into a Maga Republican, preserving his role in the Trump administration and potentially setting up a 2028 presidential run. Miller is a rightwing ideologue who has staked out a reputation as the administration’s driving hawk on immigration and a Trump enforcer among his top aides.The fact that two men with such disparate backgrounds could both vie for the position indicates how the president relies more on the personalities around him than the positions they hold.Mike Waltz was always the odd man out – a hawk who reportedly conspired with Benjamin Netanyahu on options to bomb Iran, and perhaps more importantly failed to jell with key Trump aides like chief of staff Susie Wiles. Then there was Signalgate, when Waltz accidentally added the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg into a top-level group chat discussing strikes against Yemen’s Houthis.The country’s national security adviser is tasked with briefing the president and coordinating discussions among the key foreign policy and national security advisers. While Henry Kissinger famously served as secretary of state and national security adviser for two years during the Vietnam war, that was 50 years ago and there are doubts that Rubio can both travel the world as the US’s top diplomat and also fulfill a role where he should be attached to Trump’s hip at the White House.“If Rubio is going to maintain his role as secretary of state, there is absolutely no way for him to do both jobs sustainably,” said Edward Price, a former senior adviser to secretary of state Antony Blinken who also served on the national security council. “2025 is not 1975 [when Henry Kissinger served in both roles] in terms of the issues that the foreign policy establishment has to deal with and running a department of 80,000 people and being the nation’s top diplomat should be more than a 24/7 job.“If it’s not, you’re you’re not doing it right,” he said.The role of national security adviser “really can’t be performed by someone who’s also got a cabinet department to run”, said John Bolton, Trump’s former national security adviser during his first term, in a CNN interview.Miller is among the most ardent members of the Maga wing of Trump’s coterie. While he mainly focuses on domestic issues – in particular curating the government’s aggressive anti-immigration policy – he has also matched the president’s skepticism of Ukraine and his pro-Israel policies as well, particularly regarding the crackdown on anti-war protestors in the United States.But more importantly, he has proven himself as a powerful enforcer in the administration.The leaked transcripts of the Signal chats among top officials showed that Miller effectively cut off a discussion of whether or not the timing was right to strike the Houthis in Yemen by citing the desires of the president. “As I heard it, the president was clear: green light, but we soon make clear to Egypt and Europe what we expect in return,” he wrote, prompting defense secretary Pete Hegseth to respond: “Agree.”Many took that to signal his weight in the administration. “I think that Signal chat is exhibit A,” said Price. “He goes in there and speaks on an issue that, as homeland security Adviser and deputy chief of staff, really shouldn’t be clearly within his purview.” He said “the president has spoken, and this is what he said, and this is what we’re going to do. And everyone sort of got in line, and, you know, it’s clear that he’s the power center of this White House.”That matters far less than policy bonafides, of which Miller has few when it comes to US foreign policy. “Miller’s a very bright person, no one should underestimate him,” said Bolton. “If he were to become national security adviser, you would have a clear merging of the homeland and national security adviser jobs … but it’s hard to see what [he] would contribute to discussions on national nuclear weapons strategy.” More

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      Trump moves Mike Waltz from national security adviser to UN ambassador role

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      Donald Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts after they lost the confidence of other administration officials and found themselves without allies at the White House, according to two people familiar with the matter.The exit of Waltz and Wong marked the conclusion of a fraught tenure. In March, Waltz inadvertently added Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, to a Signal group chat that shared sensitive information about US missile strikes in Yemen before they took place.Trump announced in a Truth Social post later on Thursday that he would name his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, to also take on the job of the national security adviser on an interim basis, and that he would nominate Waltz to be the US ambassador to the United Nations.The president briefly considered firing Waltz over the Signal episode, but decided he was unwilling to give the news media the satisfaction of forcing the ouster of a top cabinet official weeks into his second term. Trump was also mollified by an internal review that found Waltz’s error was a mistake.The furore over the Signal group chat, if anything, was widely seen to have bought Waltz and Wong additional time after they had both been on shaky ground for weeks. That was in large part because of a strained working relationship with Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, and other senior officials.The interpersonal difficulties extended to Wong, according to a person directly familiar with the ousters. Wong frustrated some officials at other agencies who were involved in national security matters and complained to people in the West Wing that Waltz refused to rein him in, the person said.In the days after the Signal group chat episode, Waltz sought advice from JD Vance and others in the vice-president’s circle about how to reset relations. Vance counseled Waltz to be more deferential to Wiles, who had pushed for him to get the job, and throw around his weight less.But Waltz also came under fire from other quarters. Even though he was cleared in the internal review into Signalgate, as it came to be known, Waltz faced pressure for being seen as a war hawk and at odds with Trump’s “America first” agenda.That included scrutiny at a dinner that Waltz attended with Trump and some of Trump’s allies including Tucker Carlson, who has been skeptical of the adviser. The outside pressure campaign to remove Waltz additionally included an effort led by Steve Bannon, the people said.And the far-right activist Laura Loomer, who pushed a conspiracy theory that Wong had loyalties to China, weakened Waltz’s power after she went to the White House last month at Trump’s invitation and successfully pushed for Trump to fire a number of Waltz’s staffers.The gutting of Waltz’s staff was widely seen to have weakened his position inside Trump’s orbit. As Carlson, Bannon and Loomer separately pushed a whisper campaign that Waltz would be out before June, officials in the White House concurred that Waltz’s influence was waning.This week, it was quietly made clear to Waltz and Wong that their time at the national security council would be coming to an end. Waltz tried to extend his tenure by attending a cabinet meeting on Wednesday but was informed of his removal on Thursday, one of the people said.The top Senate Democrat, Chuck Schumer, welcomed the firing of Waltz but said that the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, was most deserving of losing his job.“They should fire him, but they’re firing the wrong guy. They should be firing Hegseth,” the minority leader told reporters at the Capitol.He accused Republicans of confirming a defense secretary who was unfit for the job, and predicted scandals similar to Signalgate – where Hegseth, Waltz and other national security officials shared details of airstrikes in Yemen in a group chat – would happen in the future.“They fired the [national security council] guy, but there are going to be many more problems, just like Signalgate that come out of the defense department, as long as Hegseth is in charge. This is not a one-off. This is going to happen over and over and over again.”Trump’s move to name Rubio the interim national security adviser took officials at the state department by surprise. Tammy Bruce, the spokesperson for the state department, appeared to learn about the decision from a reporter during a news conference in real time.The appointment means Rubio has taken on a total of four positions in the administration. In addition to being secretary of state and interim national security adviser, he is also currently serving as the acting USAID administrator and the acting national archivist.Chris Stein contributed reporting More

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      Hegseth blames ousted officials for leaks in latest Signal chat scandal

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      The embattled US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, has defended his most recent use of the encrypted messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, blaming fired Pentagon officials for orchestrating leaks against the Trump administration.In an interview with former colleagues at Fox News on Tuesday morning, the defense secretary suggested the problems stemmed from former officials, appointed by this administration, for leaking information to damage him and Donald Trump, adding that there was an internal investigation and that evidence would eventually be handed to the justice department.“When you dismiss people who you believe are leaking classified information … Why would it surprise anybody if those very same people keep leaking to the very same reporters whatever information they think they can have to try to sabotage the agenda of the president or the secretary?” Hegseth said.In a statement posted on X over the weekend, the three dismissed top officials – Dan Caldwell, Colin Carroll and Darin Selnick – wrote that they were “incredibly disappointed” by the way they were removed, adding that “unnamed Pentagon officials have slandered our character with baseless attacks on our way out the door.”Hegseth, in the interview, also confirmed the news that his chief of staff, Joe Kasper, will stay at the Pentagon, but it’s “going to be in a slightly different role”.The controversy stems from recent reporting in the New York Times, after a second Signal chat was identified in which Hegseth is again believed to have shared sensitive operational details about strikes against Houthis in Yemen – including launch times of fighter jets, bomb drop timings and missile launches – with a group of 13 people, including his wife, brother and personal lawyer, some of whom possessed no security clearance.Hegseth dismissed those reports in the interview, characterizing criticism as politically motivated attacks.“No one’s texting war plans,” Hegseth told Fox and Friends. “What was shared over Signal then and now, however you characterize it, was informal, unclassified coordinations for media coordination among other things.”An earlier revelation in March detailed how Hegseth had shared similar military information in another Signal chat that included Jeffrey Goldberg, editor-in-chief of the Atlantic, who later published the messages after Hegseth and the White House insisted they were not classified.After the interview, NBC News reported that the operational details came from army Gen Michael Erik Kurilla, commander of US Central Command, who shared the strike plans minutes before launch, according to three US officials with direct knowledge of the matter.Less than 10 minutes later, Hegseth is said to have forwarded some of that sensitive information to the aforementioned Signal group chats on his personal phone.The first chat leak appeared to be a violation of the defense department’s own classification guidelines, and it triggered an investigation by the Pentagon’s inspector general into his use of the encrypted messaging app.The backlash against Hegseth’s misuse of Signal while running the government’s largest and most funded office – that could get a budget of $1tn – has only gotten more intense over the last few days.Representative Don Bacon, a Republican and former air force general who chairs the House armed services committee’s cyber subcommittee, became the first member of the GOP to openly support Hegseth’s removal.“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” Bacon told Politico. “If it’s true that he had another [Signal] chat with his family, about the missions against the Houthis, it’s totally unacceptable,” he added later.The former chief Pentagon spokesperson John Ullyot wrote in a Politico Magazine opinion piece over the weekend that “the building is in disarray” and that “it’s hard to see Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth remaining in his role for much longer.”Retired US navy admiral James Stavridis similarly condemned Hegseth’s actions, telling CNN: “There is absolutely no reason on the planet Earth he should be doing that and he knows it.”Despite the professional controversies – and the fact that the current administration appointed the officials he is now attacking – Hegseth portrayed himself as a disruptive force against entrenched interests at the Pentagon.“They’ve come after me from day one, just like they’ve come after President Trump,” Hegseth said. “A lot of people come to Washington and they just play the game … That’s not why I’m here. I’m here because President Trump asked me to bring war fighting back to the Pentagon every single day. If people don’t like it, they can come after me.” More

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      Trump says Hegseth is ‘doing a great job’ despite reports of second Signal chat

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      Donald Trump offered public support for defense secretary Pete Hegseth a day after it emerged that Hegseth had shared information about US strikes in Yemen last month in a second Signal group chat that included family, his personal lawyer and several top Pentagon aides.“He’s doing a great job. Ask the Houthis how he’s doing,” Trump said dismissively, referring to the rebel group in Yemen targeted by those missile strikes, on the sidelines of the White House Easter egg roll event on Monday.Hegseth was revealed to have shared, in a series of messages, plans about US strikes against the Houthis on 15 March before they happened in the Signal group chat that included his wife, his brother and a number of his top military aides.The details that Hegseth sent in were essentially the same information that he shared in a separate Signal group chat earlier this year that mistakenly included the editor of the Atlantic in addition to JD Vance and other top Trump officials, a person directly familiar with the messages said.But pressure on Hegseth has so far come from people outside of the White House. Trump called the defense secretary on Sunday after the story broke and aides concluded that it had been leaked to the news media by a former Hegseth aide who was in the group chat but abruptly fired last week.Trump has resisted firing top officials in his second term, not wanting to be seen as caving to a media swarm even if he has been unhappy with the negative coverage. Trump also stuck by his national security adviser, Mike Waltz, who had added the editor of the Atlantic to the first chat.According to a person familiar with the call, Trump told Hegseth that he had his support and that disgruntled leakers were to blame for the story, which was first reported by the New York Times.Trump also told his team to back Hegseth in public, and senior Trump aides repeated their defense line that none of the information shared in either of the group chats were classified, although the accusations have centered on why it was shared with Hegseth’s wife, for instance, since she is not a Pentagon official.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionThe defense secretary himself appeared furious when asked about the second Signal chat during the White House Easter egg roll event on the South Lawn, telling reporters that the story was a “hit piece” that repeated his defense that it had been pushed by “disgruntled former employees”.But Hegseth faced growing pressure to resign after John Ullyot, his former spokesperson, wrote in an extraordinary opinion essay in Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon was “in disarray under Hegseth’s leadership”.Republican congressman Don Bacon, who sits on the House armed services committee, did not explicitly call for Hegseth’s resignation but suggested he would not keep Hegseth in place were he was the president.“I had concerns from the get-go because Pete Hegseth didn’t have a lot of experience,” said Bacon, a former air force general. “I’m not in the White House and I’m not going to tell the White House how to manage this … but I find it unacceptable and I wouldn’t tolerate it if I was in charge.” More

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      ‘Full-blown meltdown’ at Pentagon after Hegseth’s second Signal chat revealed

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      Pressure was mounting on the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, on Monday following reports of a second Signal chatroom used to discuss sensitive military operations, while a former top Pentagon spokesperson slammed the US’s top military official’s leadership of the Department of Defense.John Ullyot, who resigned last week after initially serving as Pentagon spokesperson, said in a opinion essay published by Politico on Sunday that the Pentagon has been overwhelmed by staff drama and turnover in the initial months of the second Trump administration.Ullyot called the situation a “full-blown meltdown” that could cost Hegseth, a 44-year-old former Fox News host and national guard officer, his job as defense secretary.“It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership,” Ullyot wrote.Donald Trump Jr pushed back on the opinion piece, saying the author is “officially exiled” from Trump’s political movement. “This guy is not America First,” Trump Jr wrote on X. “I’ve been hearing for years that he works his ass off to subvert my father’s agenda. That ends today.”The warning came as the New York Times reported that Hegseth shared details of a US attack on Yemeni Houthi rebels last month in a second Signal chat that he created himself and included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people.The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, were made public by the Atlantic magazine’s Jeffrey Goldberg, who had been accidentally added to the group.The existence of a second Signal chat, coupled with Ullyot’s devastating portrait of the Pentagon under Hegseth, is likely to increase pressure on the White House to take action.Trump defended Hegseth at the annual Easter egg roll event at the White House.“Pete’s doing a great job,” the president said. “Just ask the Houthis how he’s doing. It’s just fake news. They just bring up stories. It sounds like disgruntled employees. He was put there to get rid of a lot of bad people and that’s what he’s doing. You don’t always have friends when you do that.”Hegseth himself blamed “disgruntled former employees” in remarks to reporters at the same event.“What a big surprise that a few leakers get fired and suddenly a bunch of hit pieces come out from the same media that peddled the Russia hoax,” Hegseth said. “This is what the media does. They take anonymous sources from disgruntled former employees, and then they try to slash and burn people and ruin their reputations.”He continued: “Not going to work with me, because we’re changing the defense department, putting the Pentagon back in the hands of war-fighters. And anonymous smears from disgruntled former employees on old news doesn’t matter.”The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, issued a statement in a post on X on Sunday night following the New York Times report.“Another day, another old story – back from the dead,” Parnell said. “The Trump-hating media continues to be obsessed with destroying anyone committed to President Trump’s agenda. This time, the New York Times – and all other Fake News that repeat their garbage – are enthusiastically taking the grievances of disgruntled former employees as the sole sources for their article.“There was no classified information in any Signal chat, no matter how many ways they try to write the story. What is true is that the Office of the Secretary of Defense is continuing to become stronger and more efficient in executing President Trump’s agenda. We’ve already achieved so much for the American warfighter, and will never back down.”Tammy Duckworth, a Democratic senator from Illinois and combat veteran, said in a statement that the second Signal chat put the lives of US men and women in uniform at greater risk:“How many times does Pete Hegseth need to leak classified intelligence before Donald Trump and Republicans understand that he isn’t only a f*cking liar, he is a threat to our national security?“Every day he stays in his job is another day our troops’ lives are endangered by his singular stupidity,” Duckworth said. “He must resign in disgrace.”Jack Reed, a Democratic senator from Rhode Island and a senior member of the Senate armed services committee, said the report, if true, “is another troubling example of Secretary Hegseth’s reckless disregard for the laws and protocols that every other military service member is required to follow”.Reed called on Hegseth to “immediately explain why he reportedly texted classified information that could endanger American service members’ lives on a commercial app that included his wife, brother, and personal lawyer”.Reed said he had “warned that Mr Hegseth lacks the experience, competence, and character to run the Department of Defense. In light of the ongoing chaos, dysfunction, and mass firings under Mr Hegseth’s leadership, it seems that those objections were well-founded.”Ullyot warned that under Hegseth “the Pentagon focus is no longer on warfighting, but on endless drama” and said “the president deserves better than the current mishegoss at the Pentagon.” More

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      Pete Hegseth shared Yemen attack details in second Signal chat – report

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      Before the US launched military strikes on Yemen in March, Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, sent detailed information about the planned attacks to a private Signal group chat that he created himself, which included his wife, his brother and about a dozen other people, the New York Times reported on Sunday.The Guardian has independently confirmed the existence of Hegseth’s own private group chat.According to unnamed sources familiar with the chat who spoke to the Times, Hegseth sent the private group of his personal associates some of the same information, including the flight schedules for the F/A-18 Hornets that would strike Houthi rebel targets in Yemen, that he also shared with another Signal group of top officials that was created by Mike Waltz, the national security adviser.The existence of the Signal group chat created by Waltz, in which detailed attack plans were divulged by Hegseth to other Trump administration officials on the private messaging app, was made public last month by Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic, who had been accidentally added to the group by Waltz.The fact that Hegseth also shared the plans in a second Signal group chat, according to “people familiar with the matter” who spoke to the Times, is likely to add to growing criticism of the former Fox weekend anchor’s ability to manage the Pentagon, a massive organization which operates in matters of life and death around the globe.According to the Times, the private chat also included two senior advisers to Hegseth – Dan Caldwell and Darin Selnick – who were fired last week after being accused of leaking unauthorized information.Hegseth has previously been criticized for including his wife, Jennifer, a former Fox News producer, in sensitive meetings with foreign leaders, including a discussion of the war in Ukraine with Britain’s most senior defense officials at the Pentagon last month, during which she was pictured sitting directly behind her husband. Phil Hegseth, the secretary’s younger brother, is a podcast producer who was recently hired as a Department of Homeland Security liaison to the Pentagon. It is unclear why either would need to know the details of strike plans in advance.According to the Times, Hegseth used his private phone, rather than a government device, to access the Signal chat with his family and friends.CNN reported later on Sunday that three sources familiar with Hegseth’s private Signal group confirmed to the broadcaster that he had used it to share Yemen attack plans before the strikes were launched.The same information was also confirmed to the Associated Press by a source familiar with the group chat who said that it included 13 people.Shortly after the news of the second Signal chat broke, Politico published an opinion article by Hegseth’s former press secretary, John Ullyot, which began: “It’s been a month of total chaos at the Pentagon. From leaks of sensitive operational plans to mass firings, the dysfunction is now a major distraction for the president – who deserves better from his senior leadership”. More

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      Musk’s SpaceX is frontrunner to build Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ missile shield

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      Elon Musk’s SpaceX and two partners have emerged as frontrunners to win a crucial part of Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” missile defense shield, six people familiar with the matter said.Musk’s rocket and satellite company is partnering with the software maker Palantir and the drone builder Anduril on a bid to build key parts of Golden Dome, the sources said, which has drawn significant interest from the technology sector’s burgeoning base of defense startups.In his 27 January executive order, Trump cited a missile attack as “the most catastrophic threat facing the United States”.All three companies were founded by entrepreneurs who have been major political supporters of Trump. Musk has donated more than a quarter of a billion dollars to help elect Trump, and now serves as a special adviser to the president working to cut government spending through his so-called “department of government efficiency”.Despite the Pentagon’s positive signals to the SpaceX group, some sources stressed the decision process for Trump’s Golden Dome was in its early stages. Its ultimate structure and who is selected to work on it could change dramatically in the coming months.The three companies met with top officials in the Trump administration and the Pentagon in recent weeks to pitch their plan, which would build and launch 400 to more than 1,000 satellites circling the globe to sense missiles and track their movement, sources said.A separate fleet of 200 attack satellites armed with missiles or lasers would then bring enemy missiles down, three of the sources said. The SpaceX group is not expected to be involved in the weaponization of satellites, these sources said.One of the sources familiar with the talks described them as “a departure from the usual acquisition process. There’s an attitude that the national security and defense community has to be sensitive and deferential to Elon Musk because of his role in the government.”SpaceX and Musk have declined to comment on whether Musk is involved in any of the discussions or negotiations involving federal contracts with his businesses.
      The Pentagon did not respond to detailed questions from Reuters, only saying it will deliver “options to the president for his decision in line with the executive order and in alignment with White House guidance and timelines”.The White House, SpaceX, Palantir and Anduril also did not respond to questions.In an unusual twist, SpaceX has proposed setting up its role in Golden Dome as a “subscription service” in which the government would pay for access to the technology, rather than own the system outright.The subscription model, which has not been previously reported, could skirt some Pentagon procurement protocols allowing the system to be rolled out faster, the two sources said. While the approach would not violate any rules, the government may then be locked into a subscription and lose control over its ongoing development and pricing, they added.Some Pentagon officials have expressed concerns internally about relying on the subscription-based model for any part of the Golden Dome, two sources told Reuters. Such an arrangement would be unusual for such a large and critical defense program.The US space force general Michael Guetlein has been in talks on whether SpaceX should be the owner and operator of its part of the system, the two sources said. Other options include having the US own and operate the system, or having the US own it while contractors handle operations. Guetlein did not respond to a request for comment.The retired air force general Terrence O’Shaughnessy, a top SpaceX adviser to Musk, has been involved in the company’s recent discussions with senior defense and intelligence leaders, the two sources said. O’Shaughnessy did not respond to requests for comment.Should the group led by SpaceX win a Golden Dome contract, it would be the biggest win for Silicon Valley in the lucrative defense contracting industry and a blow to the traditional contractors.However, those long-standing contractors, such as Northrop Grumman, Boeing and RTX are expected to be big players in the process as well, people familiar with the companies said. Lockheed Martin put up a webpage as a part of its marketing efforts.SpaceX is pitching for the part of the Golden Dome initiative called the “custody layer”, a constellation of satellites that would detect missiles, track their trajectory, and determine if they are heading toward the US, according to two sources familiar with SpaceX’s goals.SpaceX has estimated the preliminary engineering and design work for the custody layer of satellites would cost between $6bn and $10bn, two of the sources said. In the last five years, SpaceX has launched hundreds of operational spy satellites and more recently several prototypes, which could be retrofitted to be used for the project, the sources said.Reuters reviewed an internal Pentagon memo from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, issued shortly before a 28 February deadline to senior Pentagon leadership asking them for initial Golden Dome proposals and calling for the “acceleration of the deployment” of constellations of satellites.The time frame could give SpaceX an advantage because of its fleet of rockets, including the Falcon 9, and existing satellites that could be repurposed for the missile defense shield, the people familiar with the plan said. More

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      Pentagon chief says US could ‘revive’ Panama bases

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      The US defence secretary has floated the idea of the country’s troops returning to Panama to “secure” its strategically vital canal, a suggestion quickly shot down by the Central American country’s government.Pete Hegseth suggested during a visit to Panama that “by invitation” the US could “revive” military bases or naval air stations and rotate deployments of its troops to an isthmus the US invaded 35 years ago.He also said his country was seeking free passage through the canal for its navy ships – which Donald Trump had said were “severely overcharged and not treated fairly in any way, shape or form”.Trump, since coming to power in January, has repeatedly claimed that China has too much influence over the canal, which handles about 40% of US container traffic and 5% of world trade.His administration has vowed to “take back” control of the strategic waterway that the US funded, built and controlled until 1999.Hegseth suggested on Wednesday the former US military bases that dot Panama could be used again to host American troops.He said a deal signed with Panama this week was an “opportunity to revive, whether it’s the military base, naval air station, locations where US troops can work with Panamanian troops to enhance capabilities and cooperate in a rotational way”.While Hegseth cited the possibility of joint exercises, the mention of a rotational force was likely to raise the hackles of Panamanians, for whom sole ownership of the canal is a source of national pride.The US has long participated in military exercises in Panama. However, a longer-term rotational force – such as the force the USmaintains in Darwin, Australia – is politically toxic for Panama’s centre-right leader, José Raúl Mulino.His government quickly slapped down the idea. “Panama made clear, through President Mulino, that we cannot accept military bases or defence sites,” said Panama’s security minister, Frank Abrego, in a joint public appearance with Hegseth.Hegseth also said the US was seeking an agreement under which its warships could pass through the canal “first, and free”.Jose Ramón Icaza, Panama’s minister for canal affairs, said: “We will seek a mechanism by which warships and auxiliary ships can have a compensation system for services, that is, a way to make them cost-neutral but not free.”The independent Panama Canal Authority (PCA) that manages the waterway said on Wednesday that it was seeking a “cost-neutral scheme” to compensate services rendered in security matters for warship tolls.Under current treaties, the canal is open to all countries and vessels must pay the same rates according to their capacity and cargo, regardless of their country of origin or destination.The PCA said the US recognised Panamanian sovereignty over the waterway, although Hegseth did not mention it in the news conference.The Pentagon chief’s two-day visit has been peppered with comments about China and its influence in Latin America. He said the US was not looking for war with China but would counter Beijing’s “threats” to the region.“We do not seek war with China. And war with China is certainly not inevitable. We do not seek it in any form,” Hegseth said. “But together, we must prevent war by robustly and vigorously deterring China’s threats in this hemisphere,” the former Fox News anchor said.China hit back after Hegseth’s comments, saying Washington officials “maliciously attacked China … exposing the US’s bullying nature”.Trump has zeroed in on the role of a Hong Kong company that has operated ports at either end of the canal linking the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans for decades.Hegseth asserted that China-based companies were also capturing Latin American land and infrastructure in strategic sectors, such as energy and telecommunications, and that China had too large a military presence in the hemisphere.“Make no mistake, Beijing is investing and operating in this region for military advantage and unfair economic gain,” he said.Under pressure from the White House, Panama has accused the Hong Kong-backed Panama Ports Company of failing to meet its contractual obligations and pushed for it to pull out of the country.The company rejected an audit on Wednesday that suggested it had failed to pay $1.2bn due under its concession.The ports’ parent company, CK Hutchison, announced last month a deal to offload 43 ports in 23 countries – including its two on the Panama canal – to a consortium led by the US asset manager BlackRock for $19bn in cash. A furious Beijing has since announced an antitrust review of the deal.The US invaded Panama in 1989 to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega, killing more than 500 Panamanians and razing parts of the capital. More

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      Under Trump and Musk, billionaires wield unprecedented influence over US national security

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      Just days before Donald Trump’s inauguration in January, Blue Origin, the space company owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, launched its New Glenn rocket, named for John Glenn, the Mercury astronaut who was the first American to orbit the Earth. Around 2am on 16 January, the 30-story rocket powered by seven engines blasted off into the Florida night from Cape Canaveral’s historic launch complex 36, which first served as a Nasa launch site in 1962.The flight’s end was marred by a failure to bring the booster rocket back for further use, but the successful launch and orbit still marked a watershed moment for Blue Origin in its bid to compete with SpaceX, the company owned by Elon Musk, for dominance over American spy satellite operations. During the Trump administration, it is likely that both companies will play significant roles in placing spy satellites into Earth orbit, which could mean that the United States intelligence community will be beholden to both Bezos and Musk to handle the single most complex and expensive endeavor in modern espionage.In fact, Musk and Bezos are in a position during the Trump administration to personally exert significant influence over the direction of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the rest of the US national security apparatus. The two pro-Trump billionaires have already been awarded massive contracts with the US intelligence community, including some that predate Trump’s first term in office.The emergence of Musk, Bezos and a handful of other pro-Trump billionaires as key players in US intelligence marks a radical change in US spy operations, which have traditionally been controlled by career government officials working closely with a few longstanding defense and intelligence contractors, giant corporations such as Lockheed Martin, RTX and Northrop Grumman that are adept at lobbying both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. But with Musk, Bezos and other pro-Trump Silicon Valley figures gaining an edge through their personal ties to Trump, civil servants in the intelligence community may be reluctant to deny them ever-larger contracts, especially since Trump has already fired several inspectors general who investigated Musk’s businesses in other areas of the government.Anticipating big rewards, Musk is reportedly joining forces with other pro-Trump billionaires to try to carve up the defense and intelligence business. SpaceX is working with Palantir, a hi-tech data analytics intelligence contractor co-founded by Peter Thiel, one of the most prominent rightwing figures in Silicon Valley; Anduril, a new defense contractor founded by 32-year-old pro-Trump tech bro Palmer Luckey; and several other Silicon Valley firms to form a consortium geared towards loosening the grip of the defense industry’s traditional players.Tech leaders eager to get into intelligence contracting have long complained that the business has become so consolidated around a few big players that it is nearly impossible for outsiders to compete, leading to a lack of innovation. “Consolidation bred conformity,” argued Shyam Sankar, the chief technology officer of Palantir, in a widely read public memo, The Defense Reformation.Swapping one oligarchy for anotherIt is hard to separate Silicon Valley’s calls for breaking up the oligarchy now controlling the defense and intelligence business from the eagerness of pro-Trump tech bros to grab as much power and cash as possible while creating a new oligarchy of their own.“The idea of overturning the contracting process did intrigue me, but now, under Trump, I think it is just about greed,” observed Greg Treverton, a former director of the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community’s top analytical arm. “Now, with Trump, it is mostly about money and connections.”In the eyes of their critics, tech entrepreneurs offer a simplistic, black-and-white picture of the defense and intelligence business in which Silicon Valley conveniently has all the answers.“Beware the instant expert,” said Peter Singer, a defense analyst at the New America Foundation. “It’s like they are saying ‘I watched a YouTube video and now I know everything.’ They have this narrative that only Silicon Valley can drive innovation.”Elon Musk, satellite spymasterAs he eagerly slashes and burns through the ranks of federal employees with his Doge apparatus, Musk has emerged as the most powerful and polarizing figure in the Trump administration. But what is less well known is that Musk has also gained an influential role in the US intelligence community despite never having served inside the spy world.Musk’s SpaceX has already become one of the main rocket contractors launching American spy satellites and is seeking to overcome the edge held by United Launch Alliance, a joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, the traditional giant in the niche. In addition, Starlink, Musk’s commercial satellite communication network, is playing a critical role in US foreign policy, providing internet service in remote regions of the world including in Ukraine, where it operates a communications network for the Ukrainian army. Starlink’s role in the Ukraine war has placed Musk squarely in the middle of the dispute between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Meanwhile, questions about whether Musk is assuming a dual role as both a player in Trump’s national security policymaking and a major contractor grew after he received a private briefing at the Pentagon on 21 March and visited the CIA headquarters 10 days later.SpaceX has a head start over Blue Origin in the spy satellite business, and Musk has a big lead over Bezos in Trump world. But Blue Origin and Bezos are working hard to catch up in both.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionBezos seeks to add to classified cloud contractDuring his first term, Trump repeatedly attacked Bezos over negative stories that were published in the Washington Post, which Bezos owns, and as revenge threatened Amazon’s business dealings with the US Postal Service. Since the 2024 election, though, Bezos has turned himself into a Trump booster, lavishing praise and large donations on the president while also working to transform the Washington Post’s opinion page, which he says should focus on “personal liberties and free markets”.Bezos’s move into an alliance with Trump has put him in a position to expand his reach into the spy satellite business while also protecting the large stake he already holds in other aspects of intelligence. The billionaire, the second-richest person in the world after Musk, has been involved in the spy world for more than a decade through Amazon Web Services, a cloud computing subsidiary of Amazon, which Bezos founded and where he remains executive chair. Amazon Web Services has managed the CIA’s classified cloud since it won a $600m contract with the spy agency in 2013, and dramatically expanded its intelligence role when it was awarded a $10bn contract to manage the NSA’s classified cloud in 2022 through a program code-named “Wild and Stormy”.Palmer Luckey and Silicon Valley’s clique of young defense contractorsPlenty of other Silicon Valley billionaires are also seeking to crowd into Washington alongside Musk and Bezos. Palantir’s Thiel is a mentor of the vice-president, JD Vance, and his firm has a longstanding relationship with the intelligence community that is likely to expand under Trump. The CIA’s investment firm, In-Q-Tel, was one of the early backers of Palantir after its 2003 founding, and the company has had a major role in the development of data integration and data analytics systems for the intelligence community. Palantir is now seeking a broader role in developing AI for both the Pentagon and the intelligence community.Luckey, who made his name as a virtual reality entrepreneur by founding Oculus, has become a prominent new face at the intersection of Trump world and national security. Luckey’s Anduril now has a contract with the US army to develop battlefield virtual reality headsets, which would allow data to be sent directly to soldiers while also allowing them to control unmanned drones and other weapons. In addition, Anduril won a $642m contract with the Marine Corps to develop countermeasures against small drones in March. Luckey first supported Trump in 2016, when that was an unpopular position in Silicon Valley, but now that Trump is back, he has said that he’s on an “I told you so tour”, trumpeting his America-first political views.Luckey said in a recent interview: “I don’t think the United States needs to be the world police. It needs to be the world’s gun store.”Google once committed to not building artificial intelligence for weapons or surveillance in a watershed moment of divorcing tech from the defense and intelligence industry. Earlier this year, though, the company scrapped that pledge. The campaign by the tech bros to win bigger roles for themselves in defense and intelligence represents a return to Silicon Valley’s roots. Hi-tech originally grew in northern California because of its early connections to the military and defense industrial base in the region, observed Margaret O’Mara, a tech industry historian at the University of Washington.“Silicon Valley has always been in the business of war,” O’Mara said. More