Welcome to The Hill's Defense & NatSec newsletter {beacon} View Online Defense &National Security Defense &National Security The Big Story Hegseth's Pentagon turmoil makes GOP senators uneasy A growing group of Senate Republicans are losing confidence in Defense Secretary
A free speech group led by Hollywood star Jane Fonda is defending comedian Jimmy Kimmel, who President Trump and first lady Melania Trump said Monday should lose his late-night hosting gig over a joke last week calling the first lady an "expectant widow," a dig that came just
President Trump and his political allies are pointing to Saturday’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner as providing urgent proof of the need for his planned ballroom on White House grounds, touting its security strengths for large events.
{beacon} Technology Technology The Big Story Musk vs. Altman: Tech titans face off in court Tesla CEO Elon Musk's fight against OpenAI C Sam Altman kicked off Monday, as the years-long feud between the two tech titans comes to a head at a trial over the ChatGPT maker’s
A group of Senate Democrats are investigating an early March attack on U.S. troops stationed in Kuwait, where six service members were killed and another 20 were injured amid the U.S. war with Iran. The four Democrats — Sens. Elizabeth Warren (Mass.), Richard Blumenthal
A new (and very specific) speed limit has been posting in Wisconsin at the Outagamie County Recycling and Solid Waste facility. Drivers entering the facility need to drive no faster than 17.3 mph.
A fresh wave of conspiracy theories is rolling through social media across the country following Saturday night’s attempted assassination of President Trump at the annual White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner. The unfounded theories largely capitalize on short
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Monday called White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt a “stone-cold liar” after she blamed Democrats for the Saturday shooting at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner. “I think that what's interesting to me,
The decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to stop recommending giving infants a dose of the hepatitis B vaccine within 24 hours after birth is likely to lead to hundreds of more infections, worse health outcomes and millions of dollars in higher
The Trump administration will pay two energy companies to abandon their offshore wind ambitions and invest in fossil fuels instead. The Interior Department announced on Monday that it would issue a refund to Global Infrastructure Partners, which is part of BlackRock and Golden
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) is standing by his promise to use “maximum warfare” in the battle over redistricting, even following Saturday’s shooting at a press gala where President Trump was in attendance. In the wake of the shooting, a number of
Right-wing commentators and conspiracy theorists have expressed doubts about the legitimacy of the attempted assassination at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. “Does anybody else just not care about the White House Correspondent’s Dinner shooting like at all,”
The increase, first reported by POLITICO, comes as Congress remains at a funding stalemate.
Weijia Jiang, the president of the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA), said Monday that the Washington Hilton donated roughly 2,600 meals that went unserved after the association’s annual dinner was cut short Saturday by a gunman. Jiang wrote on the social platform
Musician Kid Rock reportedly got an AH-64 Apache helicopter ride with Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth Monday morning. Ryan Grim of Drop Site posted on X that the musician, whose real name is Robert James Ritchie, flew to Fort Belvoir in northern Virginia on his private jet
One of the Trump administration’s newest immigration judges said that some women are just a “warm, wet hole.” Melissa Isaak, an Army veteran and reservist, was hired by the Justice Department on April 8 as a temporary immigration judge. She was permitted to begin hearing cases
Military spending across the globe hit a record high of nearly $2.9 trillion in 2025, the 11th consecutive year it’s grown, according to a new report released Monday by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The world’s military expenditures — the share
A new poll found that 64 percent of U.S. adults believe children born in the country should be granted birthright citizenship. The Reuters/Ipsos poll published Monday found that 32 percent of respondents disagreed with jus soli or "right of the soil" citizenship clause granted
Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) said Monday that he will return to the upper chamber this week after taking time off for the death of his daughter, Madison. The Virginia senator wrote on the social platform X, “As we remember our incredible daughter, Maddy, my family has been deeply
One of the fires grew by 10,000 acres over the weekend.
‘We have to protect the American rate payer,’ Jeffries says.
Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, warned against attempts at political violence in the nation’s capital at a press conference Monday announcing charges against the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner suspect. The attempted
United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby said Monday that American Airlines “declined to engage” in talks of a merger between the two companies, which he argued would benefit travelers in the U.S. In a lengthy press release, Kirby said that he “approached American” about a merger
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Monday morning that it was “disgusting and inhumane” for CBS News’s Norah O’Donnell to read a reported manifesto of the suspected gunman at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner. “Norah O’Donnell may have
Germany thinks Iran is getting the better of Donald Trump in negotiations. On Wednesday, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz told a group of secondary school students in western Germany that “there is a sense that a whole nation is being humiliated by the Iranian leadership,
A prominent commercial contractor with government ties built a secluded residence in the New Mexico desert for Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein purchased Zorro Ranch from former Democratic Governor Bruce King in 1993. Then he hired Bradbury Stamm Construction, a company better known
A preservation group is not backing down from its lawsuit over President Trump’s White House ballroom project, a lawyer for the group said in a letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday. “I write to acknowledge receipt of your letter requesting that the National Trust
The Department of Justice has reached a second agreement to fork over taxpayer dollars to President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn. A brief document filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims Friday stated that the parties had agreed to a
Hundreds of employees at Google are pressing the company’s CEO to reject any deal with the Pentagon to use the company's artificial intelligence in classified settings, warning of the same risks as Anthropic before it was banned in military work earlier this year. The letter,
Of all the media exchanges that unfolded in the wake of a deranged gunman’s attack on the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, the most telling by far was the one between CNN’s Dana Bash and Representative Jamie Raskin on Sunday. Bash suggested Democrats bore some blame for the
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) will address reporters on Monday afternoon. Jeffries said on Sunday that House Democrats would not focus on impeaching President Trump if they win a majority in the lower chamber during the midterm elections. Watch the news
The Virginia Supreme Court on Monday mulled the legality of Democrats' redistricting referendum that gave the party a more favorable edge ahead of the midterms. The state's highest court heard oral arguments Monday morning in a case brought forth by Republicans, arguing state
House conservatives wants to strip out language zeroing out ICE's budget.
The Washington Hilton hotel said Monday it was following “stringent” Secret Service protocols during Saturday’s White House Correspondents' Association dinner, where an armed man charged at a security checkpoint and exchanged gunfire with law enforcement officers. "The hotel
The president pressed Republicans to unify and forge ahead with a party-line budget maneuver called reconciliation to fund certain immigration agencies.
The Supreme Court could limit Americans’ ability to sue pesticide makers over alleged health harms from their products in a case that saw oral arguments on Monday. At issue is whether people can sue pesticide-makers such as Monsanto for failing to warn consumers of alleged
The Trump administration is coming after Jimmy Kimmel—again. Both President Trump and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday joined the train of hate kicked off by first lady Melania Trump in response to Kimmel’s jokes at a parody White House Correspondent’s
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt blamed rhetoric from prominent Democrats for the shooting on Saturday at the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner. “This political violence stems from a systemic demonization of him and his supporters by
Former Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse (R) in a new interview published Monday said Congress was not “wrestling” with big or important questions, hammering both the Republican and Democratic parties for not grappling with more forward-looking issues. “Neither of these parties really
Cole Tomas Allen, the suspected gunman who opened fire at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday, has been charged with attempting to assassinate the president of the United States. Allen appeared at a brief preliminary hearing Monday, where Magistrate Judge Matthew
President Donald Trump is calling for Disney to fire Jimmy Kimmel. On Thursday, Kimmel joked that Melania Trump had looked like an "expectant widow" in a skit about the upcoming White House Correspondents' Dinner. The skit aired days before an armed gunman made an assassination
Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche, FBI Director Kash Patel, and U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia Jeanine Pirro will hold a press conference on Monday afternoon following the initial court appearance of the suspected White House Correspondents' Association dinner
Over 600 Google employees signed a letter to CEO Sundar Pichai demanding that Google block the Pentagon from using its AI models for classified purposes, reports the The Washington Post. Its organizers claim many of the signers work in Google's DeepMind AI lab, and include more
President Trump is calling for ABC's late-night comedian, Jimmy Kimmel, to be fired over a joke the host made last week with a punch line saying first lady Melania Trump has the "glow" of "an expectant widow." Kimmel's joke came during an episode of his nightly show that aired
The alleged gunman at the White House Correspondents' Association dinner is charged with attempting to assassinate President Trump, Department of Justice (DOJ) prosecutors said Monday at an initial court appearance. Cole Allen, 31, faces three federal charges over his alleged
Rep. Nick Langworthy wants Senate-passed bill sent to President Donald Trump's desk.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt brushed aside conspiracy theories that spread across social media over the weekend suggesting a shooting outside the annual White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) dinner over the weekend was staged. "It's very important to us
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman are poised to face off in court Monday, as the years-long feud between the two tech titans comes to a head at a trial over the ChatGPT maker’s corporate structure. Musk, who helped found OpenAI in 2015 before leaving and later
The Supreme Court is hearing a case that could impact asylum policy, and ultimately it is up to Congress to decide how to manage asylum at the border in a way that balances security and human dignity.
Details about the alleged gunman at the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) dinner have started to emerge ahead of his initial court appearance Monday. The suspect has been identified as Cole Allen, 31, a teacher and game developer who law enforcement says traveled