Pete Hegseth Calls Alarming Meeting With Hundreds of Military Leaders

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has urgently called on hundreds of U.S. military officials around the globe for a spontaneous meeting at a Marine Corps base in Virginia next week, though the reason for the gathering remains top secret.

The unusual directive was received by top military commanders stationed around the world, ordering them to meet in Quantico on Tuesday, reported The Washington Post. There are approximately 800 U.S. generals and admirals in total. Hegseth’s order applies to “all senior officers with the rank of brigadier general or above, or their Navy equivalent, serving in command positions and their top enlisted advisers,” insiders told the Post. It does not apply to military officers who hold staff positions.

In a statement Thursday, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell told the Post that Hegseth “will be addressing his senior military leaders early next week,” but did not clarify further.

The message shocked members of the U.S. military, who could not recall another instance in which a defense secretary summoned so many commanders for a sudden in-person meeting—especially without a clear rationale. Some warned that having so many integral military leaders in one place could pose a national security risk.

“People are very concerned. They have no idea what it means,” one source told the Post.

Another military source expressed frustration that commanders stationed overseas would also be required to attend: It’s “not how this is done,” they said. “You don’t call [general and flag officers] leading their people and the global force into an auditorium outside D.C. and not tell them why/what the topic or agenda is.”

“Are we taking every general and flag officer out of the Pacific right now?” a third U.S. official told the Post. “All of it is weird.”

Hegseth’s directive comes months after he announced a massive overhaul of America’s defense systems, promising to massively slash staffing. That includes firing about 100 generals and admirals, instituting a “minimum” 20 percent reduction in the number of four-star officers across the military and the National Guard, and a 10 percent reduction to the number of generals and admirals.

President Trump’s upcoming ballroom will be bigger than the White House.

Recent renderings obtained by CBS News show that the ballroom—which Trump has been obsessing over for some time now—shows a gaudy, gold-tinged, 90,000-square foot building that looks like it came straight from the Gilded Age. The White House is only 50,000 square feet.

“For 150 years, Presidents, Administrations, and White House Staff have longed for a large event space on the White House complex that can hold substantially more guests than currently allowed,” the White House’s July announcement read. “President Donald J. Trump has expressed his commitment to solving this problem on behalf of future Administrations and the American people.”

The construction project, which began earlier this month, is estimated to cost $200 million, and at this point has been funded by Google, tobacco company R.J. Reynolds, Booz Allen Hamilton, Palantir, and Lockheed Martin.

“They’ve wanted a ballroom at the White House for more than 150 years, but there’s never been a president that’s good at ballrooms,” Trump said in July.

In September, when asked about conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination, Trump immediately pivoted to the ballroom.

“And by the way, right there you see all the trucks; they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House,” he said. “Which is something they’ve been trying to get as you know for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty, it’ll be an absolutely magnificent structure.”

As many have pointed out, this kind of project is what Trump actually cares about. He’s more concerned with projecting opulence and pomp than he is about governing. The White House is traditionally considered “the people’s house.” Now, there will be a massive ballroom next to it that “the people” will likely never step foot in, unless they have a couple hundred million dollars to throw at it. Above all, this ballroom shows that Trump really wants the White House to be just another Mar-a-Lago.

New Jersey’s only public television station, NJ PBS, is anticipated to shutter in just over nine months thanks to President Trump’s budget cuts.

As first reported by The New Jersey Globe this week, WNET, the company that has operated the station for 14 years since former Republican Governor Chris Christie shut down the state-run New Jersey Network, did not reach an agreement to extend its contract with the state beyond June 30, 2026.

The network relied on about $1.5 million in federal funding from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, but the Republican-controlled Congress in July passed the Trump administration plan to cut all federal support for PBS and its member stations

Earlier this year, state funding was also cut, from $1 million to $250,000, under a spending plan signed by Democratic Governor Phil Murphy.

“The recent cuts by the federal government and New Jersey state government have been very significant,” NJ PBS said in a statement.

“I believe that the State’s intransigence or maybe even apathy, coupled with federal funding cuts and new media challenges, likely influenced WNET’s decision” not to renew, suggested NJ PBS Chairman Scott Kobler in an op-ed.

New Jersey’s Democratic senators, Cory Booker and Andy Kim, lamented the move, with Booker calling it “a loss for all of us who live here,” and Kim excoriating congressional Republicans for voting “to take money from Elmo and Daniel Tiger and give to billionaires.”

“NJ PBS doesn’t just have kids’ shows and trusted, local news programming, but also critical emergency notification systems that kept residents safe during disasters,” noted Democratic gubernatorial nominee Mikie Sherrill, who promised to “find new ways to fund public media” if elected in November.

“NJ PBS shutting down is more than a station dying,” said Jersey City Mayor Steven Fulop, “It’s a warning about who holds power when oversight fades. Without free public media, we lose the lens that keeps those in power honest.”

State Senators John Burzichelli and Andrew Zwicker called for “a top-to-bottom analysis of public television in New Jersey to determine what can and should be done to maintain the type of services the network has provided.”

Months after Elon Musk departed his position at the Department of Government Efficiency, Social Security is suffering extensive damage from the fledgling office’s onslaught of cuts.

Earlier this year, DOGE slashed the Social Security Administration’s workforce by 12 percent, leaving an already understaffed agency in a state of upheaval. The cuts have hit local field offices the hardest, reported The New York Times Wednesday.

Local branches are responsible for serving the 74 million Americans on Social Security, many of whom come to field offices for identity verification when applying for benefits and other in-person assistance. But due to cuts, people who need Social Security cards have had to wait multiple weeks to get an appointment.

And in every office that can’t meet demand, there are frontline workers struggling to manage more responsibilities with fewer resources.

“In my 24 years, I have never seen it so bad to the point that a lot of us are medicated,” said one Social Security technical expert in the Midwest who spoke anonymously to the Times. “We joke about it, because what else can you do?”

In addition to general staff cuts, the agency has shuffled local workers to the national hotline, leaving even fewer employees available for face-to-face communication. And for people seeking help over the phone, the added representatives aren’t making enough of a dent: Many callers still spend hours on hold.

Rebekah Walker, a 41-year-old woman who’s lived with heart abnormalities since childhood, has been fighting to get a payment issue resolved with the agency for three months. She’s had to borrow money for rent and postpone medical help.

“It’s as if I am not a real human being,” Walker told the Times. “I have three children. I’m a single mom.”

Jeffrey Epstein’s self-described “pal” Donald Trump apparently can’t grasp why the pedophile’s crimes are so upsetting for the American public.

Trump complained to aides about the intense public scrutiny of his failure to produce Epstein’s so-called client list, claiming that “Palm Beach in the 90s was a different time,” The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday.

After longtime allies whipped up a furor over the dismal Epstein files rollout on the second day of a Turning Point USA Conference in Tampa, Trump wanted to know, “Why is everyone so fixated on the issue?” the Journal said, asking influential allies, “What would make it die down?”

Trump claimed he cut off contact with Epstein after the financier was convicted for soliciting underage prostitutes, referring to Epstein as a “creep.” But the pair of Manhattan socialites have shared a long and cozy history together.

Prior to his death, Epstein described himself as one of Trump’s “closest friends.” The duo were named and photographed together on several occassions—including at Trump’s second wedding. The socialites were caught shepherding underage girls into casinos together, and Trump reportedly flew on Epstein’s jets between Palm Beach and New York at least seven times. Trump penned a salacious letter to Epstein for the sex trafficker’s 50th birthday, and was quoted in a 2002 New York Magazine profile as saying that he had, at that point, known Epstein for 15 years, referring to him as a “terrific guy.”

Much to Trump’s chagrin, the botched rollout of the Epstein files has continued to plague his administration. Instead of simply disclosing the contents of the files, the Trump administration has expended vast resources to reportedly strip the president’s name from the documents. The White House also tapped Epstein’s longtime associate Ghislaine Maxwell to produce a new list of the deceased financier’s associates, which undoubtedly already exists in the Epstein files. The plot granted Maxwell improved living conditions, moving her to a minimum-security prison camp in Texas, and gave her time on the national stage to ask Trump for a pardon.

The Epstein story has remained an anomaly in Trump’s political career. For the better part of a decade, the MAGA leader became adjusted to an undyingly loyal base that rarely skews from or challenges his political vision. But Trump’s proximity to Epstein and his heinous crimes has been an outlier, prompting doubts that have undercut Trump’s influence with large swaths of his followers.

Ty Cobb, a former Trump White House attorney, told the Journal that the federal fiasco surrounding the Epstein scandal was “the worst managed PR event in history.” Its handling was unorganized and chaotic, with the Justice Department and the FBI regularly pointing fingers at one another.

At one point, Attorney General Pam Bondi complained that FBI leadership was “trying to destroy her,” according to the Journal.