MISSION CREPT: President Trump, who just six months ago said he was ready to pull U.S. troops out of Syria, is now backing a plan to keep a presence there until Iranian forces leave. But James Jeffrey, the State Department’s special representative to Syria, insists that does not necessarily mean keeping U.S. military “boots on the ground.” Arab allies and local proxy forces backed by U.S. air power could replace the roughly 2,000 American troops deployed there as the administration begins a new push for the “removal of all Iranian-commanded forces from the entirety of Syria,” Jeffrey said late last week.

HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Jim Mattis leaves today for the NATO Defense Ministerial, which begins Wednesday. His first stop is Paris, where the Pentagon says he will “reaffirm the long-standing U.S.-French defense relationship and conduct bilateral meetings with senior officials.” In Brussels, Mattis will again stress to America’s allies the need for “equitable burden sharing,” which remains one of President Trump’s pet peeves.

At his Saturday rally in Wheeling, W.Va, Trump mocked his “generals” for failing to understand how other countries are taking advantage of the U.S. “I have generals — you know, it’s called the military industrial complex. They’re great people. They’re warriors, but they’re not into the world of finance,” Trump said. “So I say, ‘General, how much are they paying for this?’ ‘Yes, sir, we are paying for it.’ Why? ‘Sir, we’re paying because they are our allies.’ I said ‘yeah, but why else? ‘Sir, trade.’ I said, ‘yes, we lost $100 billion last year on trade, why are we doing it?’”

TRUMP SINGLES OUT SAUDI ARABIA: In his rally remarks, Trump made clear he thinks oil-rich Saudi Arabia is one of the biggest abusers of American largesse. Trump, who spoke with Saudi King Salman bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud Saturday morning, said the U.S. needs to stop subsidizing the Saudi military.

“Why are we subsidizing the military? It’s one thing if a country is in deep trouble and in danger,” he said, “I said ‘Saudi Arabia, you are rich, you have got to pay for your military. You have got to pay for your military, sorry.'”

ON-TIME BUDGET: The Pentagon starts the new fiscal year today with an on-time budget, the first in a decade. Trump signed the $674 billion appropriations for the Pentagon, part of $716 billion in total defense spending, into law at the White House Friday. “My administration has secured funding to order 93 new F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighters, 142 Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, and 13 Navy battle-force ships—made right here in the USA,” Trump said in a statement. Concerns that he might hold up the legislation over Mexico border wall funding never materialized. The president instead touted $1.6 billion for the effort and slammed “radical Democrats [who] refuse to support border security and want drugs and crime to pour into our country.”

Rep. Mac Thornberry, the House Armed Services chairman, called the on-time budget a “monumental achievement” and said the Pentagon had come to believe that insufficient budgets and stopgap spending measures were “facts of life” for the foreseeable future. “These same officials had begun to view degraded readiness and lost agility as risk factors they would have to accept when facing increasingly sophisticated adversaries. Today, President Trump’s signature begins to turn that situation around,” Thornberry said in a statement on Friday.

LOVE, EXCITING AND NEW: In defending his policy of lavishing praise on North Korea dictator Kim Jong Un, Trump told the West Virginia rally Saturday that his friendship with Kim has blossomed into a full-blown bromance. “I was really tough and so was he, and we went back and forth,” Trump said. “And then we fell in love, OK? No, really, he wrote me beautiful letters, and they’re great letters. We fell in love.

“But you know what? Now they’ll say, ‘Donald Trump said they fell in love, how horrible. How horrible is that? So unpresidential,’” Trump said as he argued that by ignoring the conventions of his office, he is able to accomplish things other presidents could not.  

NOT QUITE FEELING THE LOVE: Meanwhile, North Korea says the U.S. needs to show more trust in the developing relationship before it will get rid of its nuclear weapons. Speaking at the United Nations Saturday, Ri Yong Ho, Pyongyang’s top diplomat, said the North has yet to see a “corresponding response” to its good-faith disarmament moves, and instead is still feeling the full effect of sanctions, which he said are “deepening our mistrust.”

“The perception that sanctions can bring us on our knees is a pipe dream of the people who are ignorant of us,” Ri said in remarks reported by the AP. “Without any trust in the U.S., there will be no confidence in our national security, and under such circumstances there is no way we will unilaterally disarm ourselves first,” Ri said.

F-35 FIRSTS: The Pentagon’s most expensive weapons program ever marked several firsts Friday, not all of them good. It was probably inevitable, but nonetheless a bad day when the Marine Corps variant of the F-35 crashed during training near Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort S.C., Friday morning. The pilot ejected safely, but the aircraft, which cost more than $100 million, was a total loss. It’s the first crash in 17 years of the program.

The crash came the same day the Pentagon announced its latest deal with Lockheed Martin to buy the next batch of F-35s for U.S. and partner nations. The $11.5 billion Low-Rate Initial Production Lot 11 contract, calls for the delivery of 141 F-35s at the lowest per aircraft price to date.

The contract fixes the price of the F-35A, the standard model used by the Air Force, at $89.2 million, a 5.4 percent reduction from the $94.3 million in the last production lot. The F-35B, the short-takeoff and vertical-landing variant used by the Marine Corps, will cost $115.5 million, down from $122.4 million, a 5.7 percent reduction.

And on Friday, the British Defence Ministry announced that F-35s landed on the deck of Britain’s new aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth. The carrier can embark up to two dozen F-35s, and its launch marks the culmination of a decade-long effort to bring an aircraft carrier back to the UK’s arsenal.

“The largest warship in British history is joining forces with the most advanced fighter jets on the planet,” said British Defence Secretary Gavin Williamson. “This marks a rebirth of our power to strike decisively from the seas anywhere in the world.”

IRAN SAYS U.S. IS A ‘BULLY’: Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif says the U.S. withdrawal from the nuclear deal reached with six world powers will backfire because the other signatories are keeping the deal alive. Speaking on the CBS Sunday morning program “Face the Nation,” Zarif said the reason Iran has not restarted its nuclear program is because “Europeans have been working with us in order to make sure that Iran enjoys the economic dividends of the nuclear agreement.”

Zarif brushed off U.S. threats to take action against allies who continue to do business with Iran. “The United States is asking countries to violate international law and is telling countries and companies that, if they observe the law, they will be punished,” he said. “This is probably unprecedented, even for a bully in a town to go to the sheriff’s office and tell them, if you try not to rob people, you’re going to be punished.”

ZINKE’S IDEA: Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke says the U.S. Navy can blockade Russia if needed to keep it from controlling energy supplies in the Middle East as it does in Europe.

“The United States has that ability, with our Navy, to make sure the sea lanes are open, and, if necessary, to blockade … to make sure that their energy does not go to market,” Zinke said on Friday at an industry event in Pittsburgh hosted by the Consumer Energy Alliance.

He was there to explain why hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, and the shale energy boom has given the U.S. an edge over its rivals Russia and Iran by making the U.S. less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

AIR FORCE WANNA-BE: That’s not really Air Force One you see parked near Waterfront Street at Maryland’s National Harbor starting today, although it sure looks like the real thing. It’s actually a traveling exhibit known as “The Air Force One Experience,” put on by a group called the Children’s Democracy project. The replica made its way to National Harbor by barge from Rhode Island.

According to promotional material on the group’s website, visitors will “Feel the thrill of presidential travel as you immerse yourself in the luxury, the excitement, and the history of Air Force One. In this never-seen-before recreation, you’ll take an exclusive insider’s look at the iconic plane that travels the world as America’s flagship.”

It’s not free, though. Tickets range from $15 to $35.

THE RUNDOWN

AP: Pentagon’s immigrant recruit program stymied

New York Times: ‘No Way’ North Korea Will Denuclearize Without U.S. Concessions

Bloomberg: Japan’s Abe Suffers Okinawa Election Defeat Over New U.S. Base

Air Force Times: The Air Force is revolutionizing the way airmen learn to be aviators

Defense One: China Has a ‘Space Force.’ What Are Its Lessons for the Pentagon?

Fox News: Trump’s new strategy ‘is working,’ Afghan leader says

The Hill: US destroyer sails near islands claimed by China