Daniel Lippman

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Robbie Gramer |Felicia Schwartz |Ali Bianco |Daniel Lippman

The Trump administration is carrying out a dramatic overhaul of the White House National Security Council, shrinking the nerve center of the American foreign policy machinery, according to five people familiar with the plans. The plans involve slashing the number of staffers at the NSC to less than 150 from around 350 currently — and some of those cuts have already begun.

1 month ago | politico.com | Caitlin Oprysko |Daniel Lippman

FIRST IN PI — MCCARTHY BLASTS RIVAL OF SECRET CLIENT: Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy harshly criticized Boeing last week for its delays on providing a new Air Force One, saying in a CBS News interview “the problem is really with Boeing” and that “they didn’t do the job,” Daniel reports. — But he didn’t disclose in the interview that one of the clients of his new public affairs firm, Watchtower Strategy, is top Boeing rival Lockheed Martin, two people familiar with the matter told PI.

1 month ago | yahoo.com | Daniel Lippman |Josh Gerstein

Tim Parlatore is a personal attorney and top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. At the same time, he’s suing the Navy and defending private clients against the U.S. government. Parlatore, who represented Donald Trump in a criminal case two years ago and rejoined the Navy Reserve in March to aid Hegseth, was recently tapped to coordinate the leak investigation that led to chaos at the Pentagon.

1 month ago | politico.com | Daniel Lippman |Caitlin Oprysko

FIRST IN PI — USAGM HIRES GOVERNMENT RELATIONS FIRM FOR AGENCY AUDIT: The U.S. Agency for Global Media, under the direction of senior adviser Kari Lake, recently gave a sole-source $250,000 contract to the law firm Ragnar Group for “grantee monitoring” and “program consulting support” — an echo of a similar contract the agency struck during the first Trump administration that was criticized by the Biden administration State Department inspector general, Daniel reports.

2 months ago | politico.com | Lauren Gardner |Daniel Lippman

President Donald Trump is under pressure to decide how widely available anti-obesity drugs should be and whether Medicare should cover them. Illustration by Jade Cuevas/POLITICO (source images via iStock) The future of the weight-loss industry is now in President Donald Trump’s hands — and pharma companies are mobilizing to ensure the craze for highly effective anti-obesity drugs keeps spreading.