WE HAVE LIFT-OFF! WAIT, NOT QUITE: President Trump took one small step toward his lofty goal of launching a Space Force yesterday, signing a policy directive instructing the Air Force to come up with a proposal to send to Congress to create a new branch of the armed services for the first time since 1947.

IS DNI COATS ON HIS WAY OUT? President Trump is famous for demanding loyalty from those who work for him and for bristling when senior administration officials contradict him in public. Trump publicly rebuked his intelligence officials last month, including Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, after Coats told the Senate North Korea “is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons.”

Trump later said Coats had been misquoted by the “fake news media,” but now there are reports the president has soured on Coats and is looking to show him the door. “I’m hearing from sources around the White House there is just general disappointment of the president with Director Coats, there is a feeling that maybe there needs to be a change of leadership in that position,” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy, a friend of Trump, told CNN Monday, while admitting he had not discussed Coats’ future with the president. “I don’t know what his plan is. He doesn’t tell me who he’s going to dismiss or not.”

“The intelligence chiefs … just went before an open session of Congress, and they openly said that they believe the president’s policies and efforts in North Korea are going to fail based on the intelligence,” Ruddy told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. “I think you have a classic example here where Director Coats is trying to make policy and not inform policy, The purpose of intelligence is to give the president the facts, let him decide and make the decisions, not to publicly declare that his policies are going to fail a week before he goes over to North Korea on this very important summit.”

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed “people familiar with the matter,” said Trump is still “enraged” about Coats’ congressional testimony, but that while Trump is considering removing him, they do not believe that Coats will be fired immediately. But Trump was said to continue “to fume” and reportedly complained to an adviser that Coats is “not loyal” and “not on the team.”

NEXT WEEK’S SUMMIT: One week from today, President Trump sits down with Kim Jong Un in Hanoi and will try again to nail down a firm commitment from the North Korean leader to forsake his nuclear arsenal and stockpile of ICBMs.

“I’d just like to see, ultimately, denuclearization of North Korea. I think we will see that ultimately. I have no pressing time schedule,” Trump said in the Oval Office as he signed the Space Policy Directive. “I think that North Korea and Chairman Kim have some very positive things in mind. And we’ll soon find out. But I’m in no rush. There’s no testing. As long as there’s no testing, I’m in no rush. If there’s testing, that’s another deal.”

“A lot was done in the first summit. No more rockets going up, no more missiles going up, no more testing of nuclear,” Trump said last week.

HIGH HOPES: Take it step by step, say Toby Dalton and Eli Levite of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Dalton is co-director of Carnegie’s nuclear policy program and Levite is the former director general for policy at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. They suggest some doable benchmarks, in a paper just out.

Here’s their checklist:

1. Produce a road map and timeline, including an interim objective of a comprehensive, verifiable cap on North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.
2. Freeze all testing, construction, manufacturing, and production of nuclear-related material including weapon cores, warheads, and fissile materials.
3. Freeze all nuclear and related missile facilities, infrastructure, and components in their current state and location.
4. Commit to no exports or imports of nuclear-related material, nor proliferation or  movement of activities offshore.
5. Cease all fissile material activity at Yongbyon and open it to monitoring.
6. Empower experts and give them clear negotiating mandates to work out the details and their implementation.
7. Insist on a verifiably diminished readiness of the North Korean nuclear arsenal.

LOW EXPECTATIONS: Bruce Klingner, who specializes in Korean and Japanese affairs at the Heritage Foundation, is not buying Trump’s upbeat assessment of his own success.

“Trump’s claims of North Korean denuclearization failed to materialize. North Korean [sic] has not only not taken any steps to denuclearize but instead continues to nuclearize with new production capabilities to do so at an accelerated rate,” Klingner writes in a commentary on the Heritage website. “All of the administration’s ‘successes’ were achieved in greater numbers by previous administrations with less hype.”

Klingner, a former CIA Korea deputy division chief, adds, “While there is always a chance of a surprise breakthrough in a second summit, recent North Korean public statements indicate the two sides are no closer to even having a common definition of denuclearization let alone a comprehensive detailed agreement.”

HOW TRUMP SEES IT: In Trump’s view of history, the United States was on the brink of war with North Korea. He knows because President Obama told him so on Inauguration Day in their one and only meeting discussing world affairs. “I don’t want to speak for him. But I believe he would have gone to war with North Korea,” Trump said Friday. “I think he was ready to go to war. In fact, he told me he was so close to starting a big war with North Korea.”

Trump believes his over-the-top bellicose taunts during North Korea’s year of testing missiles and warheads in 2017 finally persuaded Kim to back down. “It was a very tough dialogue at the beginning. ‘Fire and fury.’ ‘Total annihilation.’ ‘My button is bigger than yours’ and ‘My button works.’ Remember that? You don’t remember that. And people said, ‘Trump is crazy.’”

But he insists it was only through his muscular diplomacy that the world became a safer place. “Nobody else would have done that. The Obama administration couldn’t have done it. Number one, they probably wouldn’t have done it. And number two, they didn’t have the capability to do it.”

TRUMP ON WALL LAWSUITS: ‘I CALLED IT’: President Trump is feeling pretty good about his chances of prevailing in the lawsuit filed by 16 states to block him from using Pentagon funds to build his border wall. “I think I called it exactly, right? Including the fact that they would put them into the Ninth Circuit, that’s where they put them in,” Trump said yesterday during the Space Force signing ceremony.

“I actually think we might do very well even in the Ninth Circuit because it’s an open-and-close case,” Trump said. “I have an absolute right to call national security. We need strong borders. We have to stop drugs and crime and criminals and human trafficking, and we have to stop all of those things that a strong wall will stop.”

IN THIS REPORTER’S OPINION: No doubt you’ve heard the arguments against President Trump’s invocation of a national emergency to reprogram authorized, but unspent, funds from the Pentagon’s military construction and counterdrug accounts to begin building more barrier along the U.S.-Mexico border.

I’m going predict the legal arguments will ultimately fail and that Trump will prevail in the Supreme Court, if not at a lower level. To understand why, let’s examine the three key arguments against his emergency declaration:

It’s unconstitutional: You hear this one a lot, namely that Congress, not the president, has the power of the purse. For the president to make an end run around Congress using executive authority is a subversion of the constitutional separation of powers. But in this case Congress has specifically given the president the power under the National Emergencies Act, which has no criteria for what constitutes an emergency other than it requires “a general declaration made by the President.”

It’s a phony emergency: “President Trump is manufacturing a crisis and declaring a made-up ‘national emergency’ in order to seize power and undermine the Constitution,” said Gov. Gavin Newsom of California, one of 16 states suing the president. But courts are very reluctant to second guess the executive branch when it comes to matters of national security. The Trump administration will no doubt argue that defending the nation’s borders is the very definition of national security. Judges are extremely wary about substituting their views on national security for the president’s.

It’s using defense dollars for a non-defense purpose: A key provision of the National Emergencies Act is that the milcon money must be used in support of the armed forces. Again the administration will argue that without the wall, thousands of troops will have to remain on the border to protect from the onslaught of illegal immigrants, so building a wall will relieve the pressure on troops, ipso facto providing the required support to the armed forces.

DEMS SAY TRUMP AIDES RUSHED TO SELL NUCLEAR TECH TO SAUDI ARABIA: Democrats on the House Oversight and Reform Committee released a report yesterday accusing some White House officials of rushing to transfer highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia without congressional review, a potential violation of the Atomic Energy Act.

The report cited anonymous “whistleblowers,” who said the efforts “may be ongoing to this day,” and noted, “On February 12, 2019, the President met with nuclear power developers at the White House about sharing nuclear technology with countries in the Middle East, including Saudi Arabia.”

“A key proponent of this nuclear effort was General Michael Flynn, who described himself in filings as an ‘advisor’ to a subsidiary of IP3, IronBridge Group Inc., from June 2016 to December 2016—at the same time he was serving as Donald Trump’s national security advisor during the presidential campaign and the presidential transition. According to the whistleblowers, General Flynn continued to advocate for the adoption of the IP3 plan not only during the transition, but even after he joined the White House as President Trump’s National Security Advisor,” the report said.

NO SMOKING GUN, BUT… Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, sits on the same Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and has examined the same evidence as Chairman Sen. Richard Burr, who has said that he has seen no direct evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. “If we write a report based upon the facts that we have, then we don’t have anything that would suggest there was collusion by the Trump campaign and Russia,” Burr told CBS two weeks ago.

Asked on CNN yesterday if he agreed with that assessment, King cautioned that there are  some very important people that they have yet to talk to and suggested Burr may be parsing his words carefully.

“I think people heard what Richard Burr said and took it as a kind of blanket exoneration. I don’t think that’s accurate. If you’re talking about a smoking gun, no, but rarely in any legal matter is there a smoking gun,” King said.

“The key word that he used is ‘direct’ and I think if you’re looking for a smoking gun I think that’s true, but I think there’s a great deal of circumstantial evidence,” King said. “We’re not finished yet. … So I’m not ready to reach that conclusion.”

INHOFE & CO. IN ISRAEL: Sens. Jim Inhofe, Mike Enzi, John Boozman, and Mike Rounds and congressmen Trent Kelly and Greg Gianforte were in Israel yesterday meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Israeli leader’s Twitter feed. Monday the delegation visited Kosovo, where they met with U.S. troops stationed there and visited with Kosovo’s president, prime minister, and commander of the Kosovo Security Force.

NEW CHINFO: Sources tell me that Navy Capt. Charlie Brown has been promoted to rear admiral and will take over as the Navy’s chief of information, or CHINFO. Brown, a well-respected public affairs officer who is now a spokesman for the U.S. Pacific Fleet, will take over for Capt. Greg Hicks, who has been serving as acting CHINFO since the retirement of Rear. Adm. Dawn Cutler last year.

THE LAST BRIEFER: And then there were none. Army Col. Rob Manning, the last official Pentagon briefer, is retiring, leaving no one whose job description includes regularly meeting with reporters and answering routine questions on the record.

But it’s not like Manning was still briefing. Over the past year his weekly briefings became  semi-weekly briefings and finally occasional briefings. His last briefing was Dec. 10, before he disappeared entirely.

The former chief Pentagon spokesperson Dana White stopped doing on-camera briefings last May, shortly before it was revealed she was under investigation by the DoD IG for allegations of abusive management. She left when her boss Jim Mattis resigned Jan. 1.

Manning is director of press operations, a job typically filled by an O-6. No replacement has been named, so for now his deputy, the civilian Tom Crosson, will serve as the director in an acting capacity. Sound familiar? Dana White’s position is also being filled in an acting capacity by her former deputy Charles Summers, who is also not briefing.

With Sarah Sanders having been told by President Trump “not to bother” holding regular White House briefings and Heather Nauert not returning to the State Department after her U.N. nomination flamed out, Washington is quickly becoming a “briefer-free zone.” At least at State they have a deputy press secretary, Robert Palladino, who still briefs, as least as of yesterday.

ON A POSITIVE NOTE: Col. Manning will be remembered for his ready smile and relentlessly upbeat attitude, including his somewhat questionable promise that his staff of subject matter experts were available to answer reporter questions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

In an email addressed to “Media Colleagues,” Manning said, “I hope all is well. For your awareness, I am in the process of retiring after the honor of serving in the U.S. Army for nearly three decades. Effective immediately, Tom Crosson (cc’d) will perform the duties of the director until a backfill is selected in the coming weeks. Thanks for your professionalism and commitment to accurate reporting. It has been a privilege to work with you.”

THE RUNDOWN

Washington Post: Inside Patrick Shanahan’s clash with Congress in Munich over Syria

NBC News: Top North Korean official says his country faces major food shortages, blaming weather and sanctions

Stars and Stripes: N. Korean leader won’t give up nuclear weapons, prominent defector says

New York Times: South Korea Proposes Joint Economic Projects With North

Air Force Magazine: Goldfein: 2020 Budget Buys “Moderate Risk”

The Hill: Navy’s New ‘Age Of The Mind’ Initiative Is Critical To Defense

Daily Beast: U.S. Intelligence: Russia Tried to Con the World With Bogus Missile

The Hill: Russia’s Latest ‘Wonder Weapon’ Is More Propaganda Than Power

Washington Times: Turkey Confirms Plans To Buy Russian Missile System Despite U.S. Complaints

Seapower Magazine: NAVSEA Commander: Bullish on Ford Aircraft Carrier; Columbia Submarine “On Track”

Wall Street Journal: Ambitions For An ‘Arab NATO’ Fade Amid Discord

New York Times: Russia Votes to Ban Smartphone Use by Military, Trying to Hide Digital Traces

CNN: US officials warn ISIS’ Afghanistan branch poses a major threat

Military.com: Program at VA Ceremony Featured Gender-Neutral Version of Lincoln Quote

Stars and Stripes: Pentagon debt collection needs overhaul, says GAO

Breaking Defense: New Evidence Of Conflict of Interest In JEDI Contract

Air Force Magazine: USAF Issues Updated Guidance on Non-Deployable Airmen

Syracuse Media Group: New York Air National Guardsman accused of impersonating CIA agent to impress woman