May 26, 2026 · Hegseth's Pentagon, the AI oversight U-turn

Yesterday we honored the Americans who died in the country's wars. Today, twenty-four hours later, the news is about how the next ones get fought. Pip, Bash, and Heap walk Pete Hegseth's Pentagon shakeup, the administration's AI-oversight U-turn, the Florida bill that just put surrogacy contracts on the geopolitics table, and what to watch this week. - **Heap on Hegseth's Pentagon** — the May 8 memo opening a department-wide review of the military legal system; The Intercept on the Pentagon Inspector General finding civilian-harm mitigation cuts so severe the Department may not comply with federal law; Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) on the Europe force-posture cuts and sidelining of Gen. Chris Donahue — "amateur hour at best and deadly at worst" - **The AI oversight U-turn** — the same administration that scrapped the formal frontier-AI pre-launch executive order on May 21 signed informal pre-deployment evaluation agreements on May 5 with Google DeepMind, Microsoft, and xAI; the labs that *didn't* sign in the renegotiated round are Anthropic and OpenAI — the two at the center of the year's biggest AI fights - **Florida's FIRE Act** — DeSantis signed the Foreign Interference Restriction and Enforcement Act on May 8, prohibiting surrogacy contracts with Chinese and Russian nationals and targeting "birth tourism," with the governor's "China ships people here for birth" framing; takes effect July 1 - **The week ahead** — Google is publicly pushing Q-Day forward to as early as 2029, and the Anthropic v. Department of War ruling is under advisement at the D.C. Circuit — either ruling reshapes the lab-sorting story More analysis at [Power Moves Before Policy Does](https://annardudley.substack.com).