SPIKING THE FOOTBALL: In his interview with the Associated Press Tuesday, President Trump was unabashed in declaring victory — and taking full credit for — vanquishing ISIS. “We’ve done an excellent job. We’ve defeated ISIS. ISIS is defeated in all of the areas that we fought ISIS,” he said, according to a transcript released by AP yesterday. “And that would have never happened under President Obama. In fact, it [was] going the other way.”

A LITTLE LESS NEXT YEAR: Trump revealed yesterday that his budget request for national defense in fiscal 2020 will be $700 billion, a drop of $16 billion, or 2.3 percent, from the previous year but above the levels of the past few years.

“We know what the new budget is for the Defense Department; it will probably be $700 billion,” Trump told reporters during a Cabinet meeting at which he asked his secretaries to cut their next budget submissions by 5 percent. “So, it was 700, 716, that’s a very substantial number, but it’s defense, it’s very important, to us without defense, maybe the rest of it doesn’t mean very much.”

DEALS WITH THE DEVIL: Trump complained he had to make concessions to the Democrats to get the money needed to rebuild the “depleted” military. “I made deals with the devil in order to get that done,” but now “the military is in the process of being fixed.”

“Planes are being made. Boats are being made. Ships are being made. Missiles, rockets, everything. Our nuclear is being brought to a level that nobody else could even imagine. Pray to God we don’t have to use it. But there will be nothing like what we have, and there is nothing like what we have,” he said.

THE ‘NICKEL PLAN’: And it’s less of a hit than other agencies will get. “I’m going to ask each of you to come back with a 5 percent budget cut from your various departments,” Trump told his Cabinet. “Whether it’s a secretary, an administrator, whatever, I’m going to ask everybody with a 5 percent cut for our next meeting.”

“We’ll call it the nickel plan,” Trump said. “At least it will be a one-year nickel plan. We may do another nickel plan next year, too.”

OUT OF WHACK: In his remarks, Trump made an argument that many critics of U.S. defense spending have made over the years, namely that the U.S. spends more on defense than the next 10 countries combined. “We have $716 billion budgets; Russia has a budget of $68 billion. China has a budget that’s just a small fraction of what we spend,” Trump said. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. And that’s because we protect every country in the world practically. And some of these countries are massively wealthy and they don’t pay us for the protection. It’s crazy.”

HAPPENING TODAY, POMPEO BRIEFS TRUMP: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is scheduled to meet with Trump this morning to brief the president on his meetings with the Saudis and the Turks over the disappearance of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Despite the smiles and laughter that marked a photo op with Pompeo and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Pompeo is said to have delivered a stern message in private that Saudi Arabia has “a handful of days” to explain why Khashoggi entered the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and never came out again.

“I keep hearing that we’re giving them some benefit of the doubt,” Pompeo told reporters traveling with him as they left Ankara. “It’s not about benefit of the doubt. They’re going to do an investigation, and when the investigation is done we’ll evaluate it.

“It’s reasonable to give them a handful of days more to complete it so they get it right, so that it’s thorough and complete and that’s what they’ve indicated they need,” Pompeo said. “I had a chance to speak to Jamal’s fiancee. Sooner is better than later for everyone.”

GRUESOME DETAILS: Turkish official have described what are said to be audio recordings that prove Khashoggi was brutally tortured and beheaded shortly after he entered the consulate. According to the New York Times, a hit team of 15 Saudi agents, some with ties to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, were waiting for Khashoggi.

“After he was shown into the office of the Saudi consul, Mohammad al-Otaibi, the agents seized Mr. Khashoggi almost immediately and began to beat and torture him, eventually cutting off his fingers,” the Times quoted a senior Turkish official as saying. “Whether Mr. Khashoggi was killed before his fingers were removed and his body dismembered could not be determined.”

Asked yesterday if the U.S. would request a copy of the recording, Trump initially expressed some doubt about whether the reports were accurate. “We have asked for it, if it exists,” he said at a White House session. “I’m not sure yet that it exists. Probably does. Possibly does. I’ll have a full report on that from Mike when he comes back.”

KHASHOGGI’S LAST COLUMN: The Washington Post has posthumously published Khashoggi’s last column, which it says was sent by his translator and assistant the day after he was reported missing in Istanbul. The Post held off publishing it until now with the hope he might still be alive. In the essay, Khashoggi says what the Arab world needs now is freedom of speech.

“There is only one country in the Arab world that has been classified as ‘free.’ That nation is Tunisia. Jordan, Morocco and Kuwait come second, with a classification of ‘partly free.’ The rest of the countries in the Arab world are classified as ‘not free.’ As a result, Arabs living in these countries are either uninformed or misinformed. They are unable to adequately address, much less publicly discuss, matters that affect the region and their day-to-day lives. A state-run narrative dominates the public psyche, and while many do not believe it, a large majority of the population falls victim to this false narrative. Sadly, this situation is unlikely to change.”

REED: CUT YEMEN SUPPORT: The U.S. military should end its refueling support of Saudi warplanes in Yemen no matter where an investigation into the kingdom’s suspected murder of Khashoggi leads, Sen. Jack Reed said yesterday.

“With respect to Yemen, regardless of what is determined about Khashoggi, I think we should terminate the aerial refueling. I don’t think it provides any controls over their behavior and I think what it does is involve us in activities and actions that we can’t control and have no knowledge of, and that’s not a good position for us to be,” Reed said during a breakfast with defense reporters.

SYRIA’S UNOFFICIAL CEASEFIRE: The civil war in Syria is essentially frozen in place because of the deal Turkey worked out with Russia to avoid a massive Syrian government offensive against opposition forces in Idlib province, the State Department’s special representative for Syria said yesterday. “You have essentially a de facto or at least temporary ceasefire throughout the country,” James Jeffrey told reporters in Ankara.

For now, the ceasefire seems to be holding, which could reinvigorate the U.N.-brokered peace process. “So by and large the Russians seem to be willing to continue this, and this is a major step because what it’s done is it has frozen the conflict not only there, but the conflict is also frozen essentially everywhere else.”

U.N. SYRIA ENVOY STEPS DOWN: U.N. Special Representative Staffan de Mistura has announced he’s stepping down for “purely personal reasons,” but will make one more stab at launching a committee to draw up a new Syrian constitution before he leaves.

He told Security Council members that objections by the Syrian government are still holding up the formation of the committee meant to draft a new constitution, according to the AP.

UKRAINE CRASH: U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Seth “Jethro” Nehring was killed Tuesday while riding in the back seat of a Ukrainian fighter jet that crashed while taking part in an exercise, the military announced on Wednesday. The Ukrainian pilot was also killed.

BEIJING TAKES OFFENSE: China is rebuking Mattis for his denunciation of China’s “predatory economic behavior.” The characterization “is just immoral,” according to Beijing. “The U.S. has fabricated lies time and again and made irresponsible remarks out of its political needs, which is very disappointing,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Lu Kang told reporters during his press briefing, per the official transcript.

In his comments to reporters en route to Vietnam this week, Mattis referred to China’s notorious Belt and Road Initiative that some critics call “debt-trap diplomacy” because it can burden weaker countries with debt they cannot repay, making them beholden to China.

Mattis said China was engaged in “certainly predatory economic behavior,” where he said “massive debt is piled on countries that fiscal analysis would say they are going to have difficulty, at best, repaying in the smaller countries”

Mattis met today with China’s Minister of National Defence Gen. Wei Fenghe at the ASEAN Defense Ministers meeting in Singapore. No word if this subject came up.

NORTH KOREA INVASION? Ambassador Nikki Haley reportedly used the erratic behavior of her boss to imply Trump was capable of ordering a U.S. invasion of North Korea to secure a new round of sanctions against the regime last year, according to a new report.

Harper’s Magazine reported that Haley raised the possibility of a U.S. invasion by telling a Chinese diplomat, “My boss is kind of unpredictable, and I don’t know what he’ll do.”

THE RUNDOWN

Bloomberg: Air Force Secretary Prepares to Make Her Case for Expansion

Defense One: US Military Leaders Keep Quiet on Saudi Arabia Amid Khashoggi Outrage

Air Force Times: As Tyndall begins recovery, a hard road — and hard questions — lie ahead

AP: Video: Air Force builds temp housing at damaged Fla. base

Politico: Reed calls for international investigation of Khashoggi’s disappearance

Stars and Stripes: Three troops wounded in suicide bombing at Bagram Air Field

Defense News: The first KC-46 delivery is not happening this October as planned

Defense News: Heading into F-35 operational tests, threat of delays loom

Military.com: Navy Super Hornet Catches Fire During Training Flight