Before joining the White House, Kroeger was chief business officer at Fudpucker’s restaurant in Florida. He served in the Army as an intelligence officer for more than a decade and is the former national treasurer of the College Republican National Committee.

SCOOP: While the Trump admin. has emphasized loyalty, Brand Kroeger — a special asst. to the president in the Office of Presidential Personnel who handles DOD picks — previously tweeted he opposed Trump. He deleted the tweets after I asked him for comment.

His letter that was sent today:

SCOOP: Fmr. Defense Sec’y Lloyd Austin is defending himself from charges of influence peddling lodged at him by Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Rick Scott but didn’t answer most of their specific questions about his new consulting firm in a response I obtained.

Asked what Waltz has been doing to earn his keep since then, the WH said: “Mr. Waltz has stayed on in order to ensure a smooth and successful transition given the extreme importance of the role of NSA.” The WH declined to comment on what his specific responsibilities have been.

NEW: Despite being ousted as national security adviser after Signalgate, Mike Waltz is still on the White House payroll as he waits to be confirmed as U.N. ambassador. Waltz is getting paid an annual rate of $195,200 as an “adviser.”

RT @OffclGauravSriv: American 🇺🇸🇺🇸 interests before politics. Read my latest thoughts here:. @dlippman in particul….

While Lutnick went to Italy on vacay, Treasury Sec’y Scott Bessent canceled a family July 4 trip to Wimbledon and the Henley Royal Regatta to get Trump’s tax and spending bill passed, work on trade and do TV hits, a person familiar with the matter told me.

“Mr. Mihzah, 47, said that as bodies overflowed from a pit, an officer once told a bulldozer driver, ‘Push them down, or I’ll put you with them.’”

SCOOP: Commerce Sec’y Howard Lutnick was supposed to join EU officials on Thurs. for a trade negotiation as the pause on tariffs is due to expire next week but Lutnick had already left DC to vacation w/ family in Italy, a source told me and @drdesrochers.

SCOOP: The US Chamber of Commerce accidentally scooped who the WH may be planning to nominate for the National Labor Relations Board (Scott Mayer and James Murphy) by emailing some members before the formal rollout of the picks, according to emails I got.

SCOOPLET: As the Hill considers the threat of unidentified anomalous phenomena, 3 groups focused on the issue, the UAP Disclosure Fund, Disclosure Advocacy Group and UAP Caucus, are merging to drive advocacy, pass legislation and protect whistleblowers.

Their letter:

SCOOP: Sens. Elizabeth Warren and Rick Scott are blasting former Defense Sec’y Lloyd Austin for starting a DC consulting firm after earlier saying he wouldn’t be a lobbyist after leaving the government. In a letter today, they slammed him for “cashing in.”

NEW: Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-N.J.) evidently reads Politico Influence because on Wednesday she pressed conservative economist Brian Blase, a prominent advocate of Medicaid cuts, about our reporting on him receiving a PPP loan that he didn’t repay.

While Blase calls for those cuts, he has benefited from gov’t largesse in the past. The loan was later fully forgiven in line with many other PPP loans. Shortly after, in January 2021, he bought a house near Jacksonville for almost $700K, according to local real estate records.

SCOOP: One of the intellectual architects of the push to cut Medicaid, Brian Blase, once took a $20K PPP loan from the government that was never repaid. Blase is president of Paragon Health Institute, which has led in the effort to slash Medicaid costs.

Per a person familiar w/ debates inside the administration, the “Pentagon assessed this year that the U.S. military would need to do 30 days of sustained strikes to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, owing to their underground depth and spread out layout.”

“In the 1990s, Israel was closer to a run-of the-mill developing country. Today, its per capita gross domestic product rivals many in Europe … In 1990, Israel’s GDP per capita was slightly higher than Iran’s; today, it is nearly 15 times Iran’s.”

NEW: Gaurav Srivastava, the Indian American businessperson who last year had big donations to Dems frozen or returned after allegations he’d posed as a CIA spy, now appears to be trying to curry favor with top Republicans, recently posting a pic w/ Vance.