NDAA DELAYED: A backroom dispute over jurisdiction has held up the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act in the House. The $716 billion must-pass policy bill was expected to be on the chamber floor today for a final vote. But the House Ways and Means Committee filed a “blue slip” over a provision in the bill Tuesday evening, sending it back to the House and Senate conference committee for a revision, said Rep. Pete Sessions, the chairman of the House Rules Committee.

HAPPENING TODAY: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo appears before the full Senate Foreign Relations committee this afternoon to brief senators anxious to learn what exactly President Trump committed to in his private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, as well as an  update on North Korea’s progress toward denuclearization and an explanation of Trump’s ALL-CAPS threat to Iran.

Pompeo said yesterday he’s looking forward to testifying. “I’ve spoken with the president about the meeting that he held with President Putin, and I was part of a larger discussion as well. I’ve spoken to Foreign Minister [Sergey] Lavrov following that,” Pompeo said at a news conference in California, where he and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis were meeting with their Australian counterparts. “The president’s been clear about some of the things that were agreed to. There were many things that came from what I view as an incredibly important meeting between President Trump and President Putin, one that I think the world will have benefited from when history is written.”

Today’s Senate hearing will be live-streamed on the Foreign Relations Committee website at 3 p.m.

HOUSE DEMS WANT SUMMIT BRIEFING: The top Democrats on three House panels are requesting a briefing from Trump Cabinet officials on the what was said behind closed doors between Trump and Putin. Smith, along with Reps. Eliot Engel and Adam Schiff, are asking for a briefing by noon tomorrow in the letter to Mattis, Pompeo, and Dan Coats, the director of national intelligence. Smith is the ranking member of the House Armed Services Committee, Engel is the ranking member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, and Schiff is the top Democrat on the Intelligence Committee.

“Since the meeting, Congress has received no notification from the White House or executive branch about the topics of the meeting or any purported deals or agreements reached on behalf of the United States,” the three lawmakers wrote. “It also appears that President Trump’s cabinet has not been briefed on the private meeting, and Congress must be made aware of some of the potential deals or agreements that Russia claims were struck.”

SORRY, SCHEDULE ‘EXTREMELY JAMMED’: At the State Department yesterday, spokeswoman Heather Nauert said Pompeo’s week is “extremely jammed,” and he would not be able to testify before the House as well as the Senate. “I can tell you the secretary would very much like to testify,” she said. “He has an extremely busy schedule. That does not mean that talking with members of Congress is not important to him, and that is why he will spend considerable time tomorrow briefing the Senate.”

But, Nauert said, if the House wants to stay in session longer, “perhaps there could be some time found on his schedule.”

WHAT DO THE VOTERS SAY? A new Quinnipiac University national poll conducted between July 18 and 23 finds mixed results for Trump. A majority, 54 percent, agree with him that U.S. and Russia share the blame for the frosty relationship between the two countries, while 38 percent say Russia is to blame and 4 percent say the U.S. is to blame.

But on the question of whether the Helsinki summit was a success, 52 percent of voters felt strongly that it was a failure for the U.S., while 73 percent thought it was a success for Russia.

One thing respondents agreed with, by 78 percent, was that Trump should defend all of America’s NATO allies.

NORTH KOREA’S COMPLYING: At that news conference Pompeo confirmed the analysis of the experts at 38 North that Kim Jong Un appears to be keeping his verbal promise to decommission a missile testing facility at Sohae. “We’ve seen the open press reporting about the missile engine test site. It’d be entirely consistent with the commitment that Chairman Kim made to President Trump,” said Pompeo, adding the U.S. needs to have experts with access to the site to know for sure. “We’ve been pressing for there to be inspectors on the ground when that engine test facility is dismantled consistent with Chairman Kim’s commitment.”

‘THE MURDERER ASSAD’: It wasn’t that long ago that Russia was largely blamed for keeping Bashar Assad in power and turning the tide of battle against the Syrian rebels with airpower and political support. But in the wake of Trump’s Twitter threat of “consequences the likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered,” Mattis is now fingering Iran as the main culprit. “And the only reason that the murderer Assad is still in power — the primary reason — is because Iran has stuck by him, reinforced him, funded him,” Mattis said yesterday. “So I think the president was making very clear that they’re on the wrong track. It’s time for Iran to shape up and show responsibility as a responsible nation. It cannot continue to show irresponsibility as some revolutionary organization that is intent on exporting terrorism, exporting disruption across the region.”

DON’T LOOK AT ME: Mattis was notably circumspect when asked about whether he was making plans to work with Russia in Syria. It’s something that the Pentagon has said for years it has no interest in doing, in part because of Russia’s callous disregard for the safety of innocent civilians and its heavy-handed military tactics. Plus, it’s against a U.S. law passed by Congress in the aftermath of Russia’s annexation of Crimea in 2014.

“We will not be doing anything additional until the secretary of state and the president have further figured out at what point we are going to start working alongside our allies with Russia in the future,” Mattis said. “That has not happened yet and it would be premature for me to go into any more detail at this point.”

Mattis reiterated that U.S. communication with Russia is limited to deconfliction of forces on the ground and in the air to prevent inadvertent casualties.

MATTIS SPURS SANCTIONS RELIEF: The defense secretary appears to have gotten what he wanted from Congress as far as new Russia sanctions waivers in the 2019 NDAA bill. This week, Mattis sent a letter to Sen. John McCain, the Senate Armed Services chairman, urging lawmakers to move on the legislation and warning of a “worsening situation if a waiver provision is not granted in time.” Friendly countries such as India would have to jump through numerous hoops to prove they are not too close to Russia. But the bill gives the Trump administration a new path to grant sanctions allowing them to buy U.S. arms, even if they did business with Russia in the past.

“As we impose necessary and well-deserved costs through existing sanctions, it is clear that we need additional tools to aggressively compete with Russia,” Mattis wrote. “We are faced with a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to decrease Russia’s dominance in key regions, to build closer relationships with strategic partners.”

HERITAGE ON MILITARY’S FUTURE: The Heritage Foundation has published a new policy paper that is the first in a series called Rebuilding America’s Military Project, which looks at how the U.S. military should plan for its near and distant future. “RAMP urges the military establishment to adopt a different way of thinking about its approach to ensuring that the Joint Force is able to defeat any adversary — not only today or next year, but on the battlefields that inevitably will materialize 20 or 30 years from now,” writes Dakota Wood, a senior defense research fellow at Heritage. The first installment covers new technology issues such as artificial intelligence and directed energy as well as future battlefields. You can read the full policy paper here.

LOCKHEED’S PROFIT: Lockheed Martin’s push to meet its most ambitious target yet for production of the F-35 joint strike fighter helped drive profit 22 percent higher in the three months through June. The defense contractor, which expects to deliver 91 of the planes this year after boosting deliveries to 66 in 2017, reported earnings of $4.05 a share in the second quarter. That topped the $3.92 average estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet.

Sales in the aeronautics division, which builds the F-35, rose 8 percent, to $399 million, with the lion’s share coming from higher deliveries of the aircraft. Companywide, net income rose to $1.16 billion on revenue of $13.4 billion.

STILL A FAN: Trump can’t stop singing the praises on the F-35. In his remarks to the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City yesterday, Trump again referred to the radar-evading stealth design as if it were a Klingon cloaking device.

“This is an incredible plane. It’s stealth, you can’t see it. So when I talk to even people from the other side, they’re trying to order our plane. They like the fact that you can’t see it,” Trump said. “I said how would it do in battle with your plane? They say well we have one problem, we can’t see your plane. That’s a big problem. Stealth, super stealth, the best in the world.”

The fifth generation plane is not invisible, of course. What Trump is referring is that the F-35’s design and high-tech avionics allow it to operate beyond the visual range of enemy pilots and the ability of most radars to track it. Trump said the next order will be for “147 new F-35 Lightning fighters.”

ISIS ‘TRAPPED,’ ALMOST GONE: “We’re destroying the bloodthirsty killers known as ISIS — almost gone,” Trump told the VFW yesterday, while at the Pentagon a French one-star general was explaining why it’s taking so long to free the last bit of Syria from ISIS control. “We are still in the fight for at least two or three months,” said Brig Gen. Frederic Parisot, in a video briefing from Baghdad. “But the good thing is they are trapped.”

The coalition estimates at least several hundred ISIS fighters are in a roughly 180 square mile area of Syria between the towns of Hajin and Abu Kamal near the Iraqi border. Parisot says one reason for the slow pace of the end game is concern for the civilians who are still under ISIS rule. “What they do is, they take, you know, human shields, but actually they dress as well like civilians,” Parisot said. “We’re going to be very, very cautious in terms of strikes.”

VFW DISAPPOINTED: After Trump’s address, the VFW issued a statement expressing disappointment that some of its members enthusiastically booed the news media, after Trump told them not to believe what they see and read in the press.

“Just remember, what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening,” Trump said, appearing to be talking off the cuff. “Just stick with us. Don’t believe the crap you see from these people, the fake news.”

“We were disappointed to hear some of our members boo the press. The reporters on-site today were our invited guests and we rely on them to help spread the VFW’s message,” said Randi Law, manager of communications and public affairs for VFW.

PAKISTAN ELECTION VIOLENCE: As Pakistanis were casting ballots in today’s general election, a suicide bomber on a motorcycle killed 31 people and wounded 35 when he blew himself up outside a crowded polling station in the southwestern city of Quetta, according to the AP.

Among the leading contenders to lead the nuclear state is former cricket star Imran Khan, who is profiled in the New York Times. “He has embraced pious Islam, railing against the United States and distancing himself from his partying days — though his political organization still uses a cricket bat as its symbol. And on Wednesday, when Pakistan holds nationwide elections, Mr. Khan is the party leader widely seen as most likely to emerge with a shot at forming a government.”

A BANANA REPUBLIC KINDA THING: Sen. Bob Corker chastised Trump yesterday for considering revoking the security clearances of ex-government officials who have been critical of his administration, calling it a “banana republic kind of thing.”

“I can’t even believe that somebody at the White House thought up something like this,” Corker said on MSNBC. “I mean, when you’re going to start taking retribution against people who are your political enemies in this manner, that’s the kind of thing that happens in Venezuela, where I was just recently. You just don’t do that.”

On Capitol Hill, House Speaker Paul Ryan had a more succinct explanation: “I think he’s trolling people, honestly,” Ryan told reporters. “This is something that’s in the purview of the executive branch. I think some of these people have already lost their clearances, some people keep their clearances. That’s something that the executive branch deals with; it’s not really in our purview.”

House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer was more apoplectic, calling the idea a “totalitarian” response, and accusing Trump of seeking to “establish a more authoritarian regime.”

ISIS WANNABE PLEADS GUILTY: A New York man pleaded guilty Tuesday to two counts of attempting to provide ISIS with material support, the Department of Justice has announced. Ali Saleh made multiple attempts to travel to the Middle East, but was prohibited from doing so due to travel restrictions and intervention from law enforcement. He also assisted others in their endeavors to support ISIS, and in one case he submitted a $500 wire transfer to an ISIS backer to pay for a trip to Syria.

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Examiner: Turkey vows to keep buying Iranian oil: ‘We will not obey’

AP: Syrian media: Suicide bombings kill 38 in southern province

Defense One: No-Bid Maintenance Contract Sweetens Air Force One Deal for Boeing

AP: Gorbachev’s Interpreter on US-Russian Summit

Bloomberg: U.S. Lawmakers Take Aircraft Carrier Savings on Faith for the Time Being

Defense News: No space force for Trump in big Pentagon policy bill

Business Insider: ‘Surf passage’ is one of the most iconic and formidable parts of Navy SEAL training — here’s what it looks like

Stars and Stripes: Okinawa building shelters to protect children from falling military aircraft parts

CNN: Unlike Trump, Haley says the US doesn’t trust Putin

Roll Call: Senators Plot New Russia Sanctions as Committee Leaders Plan Hearings

Defense Tech: Air Force, NASA Work to Make Deep Space Exploration Possible

Reuters: No welcome mat for Putin from U.S. Congress

USNI News: Lockheed Martin: F-35 Production on Track Even as Congress Mulls Barring Turkey’s Participation

War on the Rocks: The Real Roots of Germany’s Defense Spending Problem

Washington Post: Two Americans, transferred to U.S. from Syria, will be tried in federal courts

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