CHAIRMAN JIM: For eight months, Sen. Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma had been effectively running the Senate Armed Services Committee as its chairman John McCain was ailing in Arizona. The Senate has now moved to officially hand him the gavel to the committee, which holds powerful sway over Pentagon programs and policy. Armed Services members voted for Inhofe Wednesday and the full Senate is expected to ratify the decision today.

HAPPENING TODAY — WILSON AT CNAS: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson talks to the Center for a New American Security at 4 p.m. about readiness and innovative acquisition.

SHUTDOWN OVER WALL? There might be trouble on the horizon for the budget. Trump said Wednesday he is “willing to do anything,” including shut down the federal government, to secure adequate funding for his border wall this fall.

“If it’s about border security, I’m willing to do anything,” Trump told reporters at the White House when asked about the possibility of a shutdown at the end of the month. “We have to protect our borders. If we don’t protect our borders, our country isn’t going to be a country anymore. So if it’s about border security, I’m willing to do what has to be done.”

On temporarily closing down the federal government, he added: “If it happens it happens.”

AND THEN: Republicans who met with Trump Wednesday said the group agreed to a plan to fund the federal government in September. McConnell, Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn, House Speaker Paul Ryan and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy “reaffirmed the September plan to fund the government,” a top GOP aide told the Washington Examiner.

THORNBERRY STILL BULLISH ON DEFENSE BUDGET: Despite the possibility of a wall funding fight, the outlook is still good for the military’s 2019 budget this month, Rep. Mac Thornberry, the House Armed Services chairman, said during in a speech Thursday at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

“There is a very good chance that the military will be fully funded on time for the first time in a long time this year,” Thornberry said. The president has already signed the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act and the House and Senate are poised to negotiate a final appropriations bill for the Pentagon.

THE CHAIRMAN’S WARNING: Thornberry was at CSIS to accept the 2018 Sam Nunn National Security Leadership Prize, and the chairman had a warning about the state of U.S. politics. “If someone asks me, what do you worry about the most, that classic what keeps you up at night sort of question, my answer is always, ‘What we do to ourselves,’ ” he said.

“I am distressed at what’s happening in both parties. We have always had fringe elements in our politics, but other than the Civil War the things that brought us together have been stronger than the things that tore us apart. The centrifugal forces now however are quite strong,” Thornberry said.

Twitter may be partly to blame. “In today’s media environment where every thought can be published, it is obviously tempting to voice an opinion on every tweet or interview. There has got to be one faction or the other that will cheer. But when every utterance is a criticism, it dilutes the effectiveness of all criticism. It all runs together. The public tunes it out and we divide into our opposing camps,” he said.

SMITH: WOODWARD BOOK RINGS TRUE: The claim in Bob Woodward’s forthcoming book that Trump ordered the assassination of Syrian President Bashar Assad has the “whiff of truth,” said Rep. Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee.

“Whether you take Bob Woodward’s book at face value or not, it’s got the whiff of truth, let’s just put it that way,” said Smith told an audience at a Defense News Conference in Pentagon City. “When you think about several things that the president has tweeted out on other subjects that we’ve all seen, it’s not hard to imagine him waking up one day and saying, ‘Why can’t we just kill Assad? Let’s go kill him.’ ”

PRAISE FOR SPACE FORCE: Trump’s call for a new Space Force military branch still faces a long legislative road ahead, but two key players rounded out support for the plan on Wednesday — Smith and the Air Force’s Wilson. Smith praised the effort as a good idea. “There is pretty strong bipartisan support for this, so I think it is going to happen, it’s a question of the details,” he said.

Wilson was among the early and vocal critics of the House plan to stand up a “Space Corps” in 2017 and originally warned it would create unneeded bureaucracy. “None of this can happen without the Congress’ involvement obviously. But if we’re going to do this let’s propose to do it right, let’s have this debate, support the president’s proposal and put it forward, and make sure that we don’t do this with half measures,” Wilson said. “That’s probably the most important part for me.”

THE STORY BEHIND TRUMP’S TRANSGENDER TWEET: Trump had promised his top advisers a discussion about transgender troops in the military last summer, but instead surprised them and his administration by announcing a total ban on Twitter, according to Woodward’s new book.

The president sent out the series of July 2017 tweets declaring the troops would not serve “in any capacity” about an hour before he was supposed to meet chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon in the Oval Office to discuss a list of potential options hammered out by the National Security Council.

“What’d you think of my tweet?” Trump reportedly asked Priebus later, according to a copy of the book obtained by the Washington Examiner. “I think it would’ve been better if we had a decision memo, looped Mattis in,” Priebus replied.

SECDEF EYES INDIA PACT: The U.S. may be prepared to sign a new pact on sharing sensitive military technology with India today during a “2+2” cabinet-level meeting in New Delhi, Mattis told reporters. “I think that we’re pretty much there already, on the American side. We’ll see where they’re at. Our staff’s been meeting, and once we get that put in place, that does give us the opportunity to share some of the sensitive technology,” he said.

Mattis, who is joined in the talks with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, declined to say what technology might be traded as the Trump administration tries to strengthen ties with a “consequential” regional ally. “We have to know that when we share this with another like-minded nation, that we can keep it secure, just like we do when the Navy talks to the U.S. Army. It’s no different. You maintain security over this kind of technology,” Mattis told reporters on his plane.

ABOUT THOSE AGING AIRCRAFT COSTS: For the past few years, defense budget debates have been dominated by talk of aging military aircraft. But rising costs to keep those old planes flying may be deceiving, according to an analysis by the Congressional Budget Office.

“Although aircraft age is important and does appear to increase aircraft [operation and support] costs, the size of the total Air Force budget also appears to affect cost growth. In particular, when the Air Force has more resources available, it tends to spend more to operate and maintain its aircraft. Such investments may be wholly appropriate, but they obscure underlying, intrinsic age effects,” the CBO analysis says.

In the 1990s, CBO found 1-3 percent annual cost growth related to aging aircraft. The rate was 3-7 percent in the 2000s. “In other words, because the Air Force had more resources available, it was able to increase spending on aircraft operation and maintenance,” CBO reported.

PATRIOTS TO THE NETHERLANDS: The State Department has approved the possible sale of four Patriot fire units to the Netherlands at a cost of $105 million.

“This sale improves the Netherlands’ capability to meet current and future enemy threats,” said a statement from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. “The Netherlands will use the enhanced capability to strengthen its homeland defense and deter regional threats, and provide direct support to coalition and security cooperation efforts.”

Work on the recap will be performed by U.S. government officials at Letterkenny Army Depot in Chambersburg, Pa.

AFGHANISTAN SOLDIER ID’d: The U.S. service member who died in Afghanistan on Monday was Staff Sgt. Diobanjo S. Sanagustin, 32, from National City, Calif., the Pentagon said. He died in a non-combat incident at Bagram Air Field. Sanagustin was the second soldier death after the military announced Monday that Command Sgt. Maj. Timothy Bolyard was killed in an insider attack.

KIM HAS FAITH IN TRUMP: North Korea leader Kim Jong Un still has faith in Trump despite a breakdown in negotiations, the South Korean government has said following talks with the North, the AP reported this morning. Kim appeared to confirm his desire to denuclearize but also underscored the need for “goodwill measures,” an apparent reference to the North’s demand that the U.S. make concessions before Pyongyang gives up nuclear weapons.

South Korea delivered a message from Trump to Kim during the talks, though it did not disclose the contents, and also set up another meeting between Kim and South Korean President Moon Jae-in for Sept. 18-20, according to the report.

FROM TERRORISTS TO NATIONS: Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said Wednesday the United States is “witnessing the re-rise of the hostile nation state” following years of the department’s focus on non-state threats since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“Our nation-state rivals are increasingly asserting themselves in ways that endanger our homeland. In fact, threats to the U.S. from foreign adversaries are at the highest levels since the Cold War,” Nielsen said during a speech at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

THE RUNDOWN

Wall Street Journal: Mattis Plans to Remove Pentagon’s Chief Management Officer

Washington Examiner: China: Nikki Haley makes ‘groundless and irresponsible accusations’ about North Korea

Marine Corps Times: Marine F-35Bs with the 13th MEU enter Middle East for first time

Army Times: Space Force? Tell it to these soldiers who are already working in space operations

Business Insider: The Air Force is revoking a big bomb-making deal from a company linked to a Russian oligarch

Bloomberg: Lockheed’s $2 Million Drone Race Pits Human Versus Machine

Breaking Defense: In Push For Arms Exports, Top State Official Moves To DoD

CNN: State Department’s top candidate to lead efforts countering disinformation: A Fox News reporter

Defense News: US Navy to launch force structure assessment

UPI: Sierra Nevada receives $1.8B for Afghan A-29s

Military Times: Pompeo, Dunford hopeful US-Pakistan relations can restart

Associated Press: New US adviser to Afghanistan raises hackles in region