How's it going America,
Check out the latest episode of The Pod Millennial in which I talk to UltraFree podcaster and Emmy-winning actress Drea de Matteo of The Sopranos in an honest, unscripted conversation about breaking with Hollywood orthodoxy, losing everything during the COVID mandates, raising teenagers in a hyper-political culture, and finding faith and freedom in turbulent times. From memoir writing to media manipulation to the spiritual undercurrents shaping today’s cultural battles, nothing is off-limits. You don't want to miss it! Subscribe, rate (5 stars, of course), and listen.
Let's get into it:
The Pentagon under Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has been engaging with weapons and defense companies to create a greater supply of weapons, including those guided by artificial intelligence. AI companies like Lucky Palmer's Anduril are all in on this, but others, namely Anthropic, have concerns and have told the War Dept. that. But the War Dept. doesn't like it and has now designated them a "supply chain risk."
AOC went to the Munich Security Conference to spread the message of American Democratic communism. Of course, she didn't phrase it that way, but that's what she was doing. She called to tax the rich, she said whiteness is "imaginary," she called the ancient, Christian bonds between Europe and America a "thin foundation," and she said that international law must be treated with paramount importance.
Anthropic was awarded a $200 million contract in 2025. They're the only company so far that's deployed their AI large language model, Claude, on War Dept. classified networks or shared Claude with national security customers, Axios notes. Claude was even used to aid the military in carrying out the raid in Caracas that ousted Nicolas Maduro. But now, Anthropic wants assurances that their AI products won't be used either to spy "en masse" on Americans or to develop autonomous weapons, those that target, aim, and fire without humans pulling the trigger.
"We are having productive conversations, in good faith, with DoW on how to continue that work and get these new and complex issues right," said an Anthropic spokesperson. The Pentagon has also been negotiating with OpenAI, Google, and Elon Musk's xAI, but those are miles behind Claude, Pentagon officials say. They want Claude, they want it on their own terms, and they don't want to have to backtrack Claude out of all the things they were already using it for.
"It will be an enormous pain in the ass to disentangle, and we are going to make sure they pay a price for forcing our hand like this," said an official with the Pentagon. That price is naming the company a "supply chain risk," meaning that companies that want to do business with the War Dept. can't do business with Anthropic.
The Pentagon under the Trump admin has been making massive changes to business as usual. I was in Missouri yesterday for a stop on the Arsenal of Freedom tour at Boeing, and repeatedly Hegseth sent the message to build faster. The government told these big defense companies to stop using their profits for stock buy-backs and shareholder dividends and start using them to invest in their future. The Pentagon got approval to sign multi-year deals with these companies, meaning the companies know the investment will pay off. The goal is to have AI companies do this, too, to speed up development and production so the Pentagon can roll out war and defense plans with these products.
This is just part of the massive amount of war planning going into the War Dept at the Pentagon from an administration that has at its head a "peace president" in Donald Trump. As Hegseth tours the country to preside over enlistee swearing-ins, demands AI companies submit to have their products used for whatever the Pentagon wishes, and increases the supply of planes, missiles, and guidance systems, Trump is overseeing the new Board of Peace in the newly named Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace building, all while ramping up military power in the Middle East.
Either the right hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing, or Trump is practicing sleight of hand by presenting a peaceful front while planning for war. The line from the Pentagon and the administration is peace through strength, and I get "speak softly but carry a big stick" and all of that. But the plan seems to be to increase war production not just as deterrence, but as a way of economic and manufacturing life in the US.
And I see it, I am glad for the US to be the baddest bitch on the block, definitely don't want some other bully coming along and taking that role, but also, I, like many Americans, voted for peace. That peace, it seems, will come with the cost of war.
I will be coming up tonight on Timcast IRL, you won't want to miss it!
Libby