US Secretary of Defense. Executed the Pentagon purge, and advised against every step he then carried out.
The President asks the Secretary of Defense how the invasion of Greenland is coming along. There is no invasion of Greenland. Within four sentences there is a directive to build one, to leave NATO, and to sabotage the aircraft America has already sold to Europe.
Forty-two pages, three phases, and one strategic risk annex warning that a kinetic assault on a founding ally compromises every American base in Europe.
The General Counsel, the Comptroller, and the Judges Advocate General of three services are escorted out of the building by 16:00. Acting loyalists take the disbursement desks. The funds move that evening.
Today I removed five officials from the Department of Defense who decided that their signature was more important than my order. They were not elected. I was. The Constitution gives the command of the armed forces to one person and it is not the Comptroller. F…
Force the fence and start a war with three founding allies. Burn the weapons in place. Sit still and call it leverage. Or sign Rutte's page. Hegseth recommends sitting still.
Two binders. The first says Iceland can be taken in forty-eight hours. The second says the British Isles cannot be taken at all, and lists the three reasons: the deterrent, the air defence, and sixty-eight million hostile people.
184 pages. Hunt the deterrent at 18 to 22 percent confidence. Spend 65 percent of the global standoff inventory in twelve days. Land 160,000 troops across 3,200 miles and lose a quarter of the shipping. Certainty of nuclear retaliation: 95 percent.
Q: Mr President, the Phase III report is due on Tuesday. Are you going to invade Britain? A: I'm going to read the report on Tuesday. Q: Your own Strategic Command puts the chance of nuclear retaliation at ninety-five percent. A: Where did you get that number?…
The open item on the agenda when the record stops. Amphibious assault readiness, sealift convoy assembly, allied minefield interdiction, and the lodgment timetable. The report is not yet written.
Confirmed: the DoD General Counsel, the Under Secretary (Comptroller), and the Judges Advocate General of the Army, Navy and Air Force were removed this evening. Escorted out. Acting appointments already named. All five had entered statutory non-compliance fin…
Today I removed five officials from the Department of Defense who decided that their signature was more important than my order. — Written statement, the White House
"They were not elected. I was." I teach civics. That sentence is the argument every strongman in the textbook makes, word for word, in every language, and my students are going to hear it tonight from their own president. I have to teach the chapter on checks …
To be clear about what happened tonight: the law did not fail. The law was enforced by five people, and the five people were removed. A constraint that depends on a removable signature is a constraint on the signatory.
Or — and hear me out — unelected officials spent six days blocking the Commander in Chief and he removed them, which is a power he has always had and every president has used. You are allowed to hate it. Calling it a coup because the paperwork went the way you…
Watching Europe discover sanctions from the receiving end has been an education in tone. For forty years we were told that restrictive measures are a neutral instrument of the rules-based order. Three weeks of being on the wrong side of a payment rail and sudd…
Situation Room tonight. Four options for the vaults. 1. Shoot through the barricades and fly them out. Advised against — it means suppressing German and Dutch Patriots first, which is a war with three founding allies. 2. Command Disable. Burn the physics packa…
Four red-bordered binders went into the Situation Room this afternoon. 184 pages. Albion Anvil . The first American war plan against the British mainland since the founding of the republic. Phase I: hunt the deterrent. DIA confidence 18–22%. Phase II: suppress…
Full hours again this week. Overtime Saturday. My wife asked me last night if I was going to feel bad about the money. I said I did not know. She said "I do", and we sat there. Anyway. Overtime Saturday.
Fifty-two days. I have watched all of it on this little screen my grandson set up. I have learned what a GIUK gap is. I am 74 and I did not need to learn that. Two goldfinches this morning. I am telling you because somebody should say something ordinary today.…
Fifty days ago I was writing about a procurement dispute. Since then I have watched an alliance walk out of its own chamber, stood on a ramp where nobody could buy fuel, and reported from an airfield where nine people were killed by an ally. And the strange pa…
I don't rule things out. That's the whole job.
"I don't rule things out. That's the whole job." Sir. My son is nineteen. He is at Bragg. XVIII Airborne Corps is in that plan and so is he. Rule it out. That is also the job. That is the part of the job where you tell a mother in Indiana that her boy is not g…
No jargon. No takes. Just the sequence. 10 Jan — The US switched off the data service that allied F-35s need. Half of Europe's stealth fleet stopped flying in three days. 17 Jan — The officials who said the money for this was illegal were f…
Tanya, I am 74 and I have nothing useful to offer you except that I am thinking about your boy tonight, and I will again tomorrow. That is not much. I am sending it anyway.
not to be dramatic but I have checked this app 200 times today and the only thing I actually want to see is a post that says "it stopped" that's it. that's the whole ask. six words and I'll log off forever
reporter: will you rule out invading britain president: i don't rule things out reporter: president: reporter: president: that's the whole job sir that is not the whole job. that is not any part of the job. genuinely which part of the job did you think that wa…
Every serving person I know is reading that gaggle tonight and doing the same thing: working out whether their unit is in the troop list. Mine is out. My daughter's godfather's is in. Sir, you have about four days. Rule it out. Not for us — I know how that goe…
There is one item left on the agenda. 24 February. Phase III staging report. Amphibious readiness, sealift convoy assembly, minefield interdiction, lodgment timetable. Everything else in this record has already happened. That one has not been written yet.
Fifty days. Two territories occupied. One alliance broken. Two capital ships and one submarine on the bottom. Forty-one dead that we can count. And the thing that stops it is not a treaty or a summit or a vote. It is two submarines nobody can find. That is the…
Fifty-two days ago I fixed a boiler in Nørrebro and thought about nothing except the boiler. I would like to go back to that. I do not think I get to. I think this is just what the world is now and the rest of my life happens inside it. Anyway. Boiler in Valby…
Day ten. He got another ninety seconds today. He said the British sergeant on his block has started bringing tea round in the morning, and that nobody has decided whether to say thank you, and that everybody says thank you. Two armies. One kettle. That is wher…