Good morning and happy birthday to Bernie Sanders. The Vermont senator and toothpaste logo aficionado turns, like, 118 or something today. Probably one of our younger senators.

Meanwhile, the White House is ironing out the details of a UFC fight on the South Lawn set for next June, and former UFC champ Conor McGregor is running for president of Ireland. Wild times we live in.

MILITARY

♻️ Trump wants to revive the Department of War

President Trump flexed his branding muscles on Friday and signed an executive order changing the name of the Department of Defense to the Department of War. But is this more than shouting “I DECLARE NAME CHANGE” into the void? Let’s dig in.

Quick history: The modern Department of Defense was created in 1947 and encompasses the entire military. Before that, the military was split between two equal, Cabinet-level departments. The Department of the Navy oversaw the Navy and Marine Corps, while the Department of War oversaw the Army.

• War changed, we needed a separate air force, yadda, yadda, yadda, they’re all sub-units of the Department of Defense now.

The change: On Friday, President Trump signed an order authorizing the Department of Defense and the Secretary of Defense to use the “additional secondary” titles of “Department of War” and “Secretary of War” in official communications within the executive branch.

Why? Well, obviously, it’s a cooler name. That’s number one. But Trump also points out that the U.S. won all the big wars back in the day using the name “Department of War.” He believes the name “War” is stronger than “Defense” and “demonstrates our ability and willingness to fight and win wars” because it sharpens the military’s focus on its core purpose.

• This ties into an overall rebranding and refocusing effort enacted this year, as demonstrated by Defense War Secretary Pete Hegseth constantly referring to the troops as “warfighters.”

Can they just do that? Kind of. But not really. At least not fully. Trump’s order notes that the new name can only be used in "non-statutory" contexts unless Congress officially changes it.

• The department’s social media accounts have already been updated, and its official website is now War.gov

What’s Congress think? The president's allies in Congress are pushing a bill this week to make the name change official. But Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI), a high-ranking Democrat on military issues, said the expensive name change is superficial and amounts to “buying new drapes when the plumbing doesn't work.”

In other military news…

• President Trump denied any knowledge of an aborted 2019 Navy SEAL Team 6 mission in North Korea that resulted in the deaths of unarmed local fishermen.

• He’s also still threatening to send the National Guard to fight crime in Chicago, saying the city is about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR.”

• Finally, he created an official designation to punish countries for illegally detaining Americans. The new State Sponsor of Wrongful Detention program is modeled on the existing State Sponsor of Terrorism classification.

GOVERNMENT

🌎️ Secretary of State Marco Rubio defended President Trump's decision to blow a boat of suspected Venezuelan drug traffickers to smithereens. During a trip to Quito, Ecuador, Rubio said, "I don't care what the U.N. says," and called Venezuela's president a "fugitive of American justice." He also designated two Ecuadorian gangs as terrorist groups. That last one garnered the thanks of Ecuador’s (Miami-born) president, Daniel Noboa. In a related boost of its fight against Latin American drug trafficking, the Trump administration is also deploying 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico.

✈️ Arguing it went beyond what Congress intended, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) just scrapped a late-stage Biden rule that would have forced airlines to pay passengers between $200 and $775 in cash for long flight delays. The proposed rule was introduced in December. But the rulemaking process is complicated, and this never got beyond the "ask for public comments" stage. As you might expect, most people love the sound of, you know, free money. But the airline industry warned it would "drive up costs and reduce choices for the consumer."

🚛 The Trump administration wants to remove thousands of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) employees from Washington, D.C. The working plan is to move them to five existing satellite offices in Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Indiana, and North Carolina. About 2,600 of USDA's 4,600 D.C. employees would be affected. Proponents of the move think the USDA workers should be closer to their customers (aka farmers) and say employment costs there are cheaper than in D.C. Others fear brain drain will take over if too many employees refuse to relocate.

POLITICS

🗳️ NYC mayor swears he’s not going anywhere

Picture this: You’re the mayor of New York City. You’re running for reelection. And you’re sitting in fourth place in the polls with a whopping 11% support. If you’re incumbent Mayor Eric Adams, the answer seems to be to call a press conference and proudly announce that you’re … staying in the race?

• Adams’ popularity has been in the basement for about two years now. He nearly ended up in prison on corruption charges until Trump’s DOJ dropped the case.

• The mayor quickly said “thanks!” by ordering his city to start cooperating with Trump’s immigration raids. That doesn’t exactly help his popularity in, uh, New York.

There are four players in the race for a four-year term living in Gracie Mansion:

• Zohran Mamdani: Democratic nominee and socialist. Leading in the polls with about 40% support. Sucks at bench press.

• Eric Adams: Current mayor. Tanking hard. Democrat, but running as an independent.

• Andrew Cuomo: Former governor. Lost the Democratic nomination to Mamdani. Still a Dem, but also running as an independent. Resigned the governorship in disgrace.

• Curtis Sliwa: The hopeless 71-year-old Republican nominee. Peaked in the 1980s. Spends 100% of his waking life wearing a red beret.

Trump, his business pals, and plenty of normie Democrats aren’t thrilled with the prospect of Mamdani taking over the Big Apple. Their plan? Convince Adams and Sliwa to drop out, giving Cuomo a good shot at winning a one-on-one race. Sliwa’s not playing ball so far, but …

Ambassador Adams? Mayor Adams just met with a Trump advisor in Florida about a potential gig as U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. Despite the meeting, Adams reiterated on Friday that he’s in it to win it, baby. Things are moving fast, though, and time is running out for anti-Mamdani forces: The dropout deadline is this Thursday, September 11.

Elsewhere in politics:

• Indiana Republicans are neck deep in Redistricting War 2025, Missouri Republicans are on deck, and their pals in Kansas and Nebraska are warming up.

• Texas Democrats will have a contested primary for U.S. Senate next year, with left-wing Christian wunderkind James Talarcio set to jump in the race on Tuesday.

TRIVIA

Pope Leo XIV rocked the house on Sunday in Vatican City when he announced the first official millennial saint in the form of British-Italian computer programmer Carlo Acutis. But we’re not here to talk about saints. Today we’re talking geography.

In addition to being Catholic HQ, Vatican City is the world’s smallest sovereign state (independent country). But just how small are we talking? That’s today’s question: How big in area is the Vatican City?

Hint: It’s probably easier to measure this thing in acres than square miles.

BRIEFS

● AI startup Anthropic will pay $1.5 billion to settle a lawsuit brought by book authors who say the company trained its Claude AI bot on pirated copies of their works. Authors will get about $3,000 for each of the 500,000 books covered by the settlement.

● Ukraine's main government building in Kyiv was damaged by a Russian attack for the first time since the war began in 2022. The strike came amid a blitz from more than 800 drones that killed two Ukrainians and wounded at least 20.

● Various lawmakers are working on competing bills that would ban members of Congress from trading stocks. Some plans would give members 180 days to divest from individual stocks, while others would allow for ownership via blind trusts.

● Internet connectivity in Asia was disrupted on Sunday after an undersea cable in the Red Sea was cut. Networks quickly rerouted traffic to other cables. No cause has been given, but the incident took place near territory controlled by Yemen’s Houthi terrorists.

● Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised to unveil what’s causing all this autism. And rumors are swirling that he has two big targets: folate deficiency and Tylenol use during pregnancy.

QUOTE

ANSWER

Obviously, countries vary in size. The U.S. is 3.7 million square miles. But Switzerland somehow squeezes all those watches and chocolate bars into 16,000 square miles (about half a South Carolina).

If you keep scrolling alllllll the way down the list, you arrive at the Vatican City and its 0.19 square miles of territory. That’s about 121 acres, which means the world’s smallest country can fit into Central Park nearly seven times.