HAPPENING TODAY: Deputy Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan speaks at 8 a.m. at the Defense Writers Group.

BUDGET HEARINGS: Leaders of the Air Force, Navy and Marine Corps are in the Senate this morning for defense budget testimony. A Senate Armed Services Committee hearing 9:30 a.m. features Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson and Gen. David Goldfein, the chief of staff. At 10 a.m., the Senate Appropriations Committee hears testimony from Navy Secretary Richard V. Spencer, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson, and Gen. Robert Neller, Marine Corps commandant.

SMOOTH SAILING FOR POMPEO: Turns out Trump was right about Sen. Rand Paul. Last week Trump said Paul is “a very special guy” who “has never let me down.” And yesterday, just as Trump predicted, Paul fell in line, voting in committee for the confirmation of Mike Pompeo, who thus avoided the ignominious fate of being the only secretary of state nominee to fail to get approval from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Paul, who wanted Pompeo to admit Iraq was a mistake and that the U.S. should leave Afghanistan, explained his last-minute change of heart this way: “Having received assurances from President Trump and Director Pompeo that he agrees with the President on these important issues, I have decided to support his nomination to be our next Secretary of State.”

With several Democrats announcing support, Pompeo’s confirmation this week now seems a sure thing.

ROUGH SEAS FOR ADM. JACKSON: Rear Adm. Ronny Jackson’s confirmation hearing has been postponed due to concerns by Senate lawmakers that he doesn’t have the right management experience and is facing serious allegations in how he runs the White House medical office.

The Washington Post first reported the hearing would be postponed. CBS News reported later Monday that Jackson is facing allegations of a hostile work environment and excessive drinking on the job. CBS also reported Jackson may have been improperly distributing medicine.

Jackson was scheduled to testify in front of the Senate Committee on Veterans’ Affairs tomorrow. Sen. Jon Tester, the top Democrat on the committee, requested the hearing be pushed back to investigate the allegations.

HASPEL CONCERNS: More than 100 retired military officers sent a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee Monday saying they are “deeply concerned” by the nomination of Gina Haspel to lead the CIA. “We urge you to examine closely the full extent of Ms. Haspel’s involvement in the rendition, detention, and interrogation program and, should you find that she played any role in carrying out, supervising, or directing the torture or abuse of people in U.S. custody, or the destruction of evidence relating to these activities, we urge you to reject her nomination,” the 108 retired officers wrote in the letter, which was first reported by Politico.

The committee has scheduled a May 9 hearing on the CIA nominee and the concern could mean more difficulty for the Trump administration in getting Haspel, 61, confirmed to replace Pompeo following questions over her time running a secret CIA prison in Thailand. “We are deeply troubled by the prospect of someone who appears to have been intimately involved in torture being elevated to one of the most important positions of leadership in the intelligence community,” according to the joint letter to the Senate committee. The former officers cited reports that Haspel ran the prison and may have overseen the CIA’s interrogation program, which was “rife with mismanagement and abuse.”

CAREFULLY CHOREOGRAPHED SUMMIT: Preparations are underway for Friday’s face-to-face meeting in Panmunjom between South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un. The South Korean Yonhap News Agency reports there have been meticulous rehearsals of every facet of the historic meeting to ensure nothing goes awry.

Today’s rehearsal started lasted nearly two hours, involving Moon's chief of staff and North Korea’s unification minister, according to officials from Seoul's presidential office. “The two Koreas will hold a joint rehearsal on Wednesday, followed by a final rehearsal the following day that will include a complete trial run of all scheduled events, including a welcome dinner to be hosted by the South Korean president,” Yonhap reported.

TRUMP’S EYES WIDE OPEN: The White House on Monday defended Trump against concerns that he is "naive" to believe North Korea will follow through on denuclearization. "We've seen some steps in the right direction, but we have a long way to go," press secretary Sarah Sanders told reporters.

On Friday, North Korea announced it would suspend all nuclear and ballistic missile tests in advance of the summits, and at the Pentagon Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, who has vowed not to talk publicly about the diplomatic efforts, nevertheless sounded upbeat about the prospects for progress. “Right now, I think there’s a lot of reasons for optimism, that the negotiations will be fruitful,” Mattis said, adding, “We’ll see.”

THE NUNN-LUGAR QUESTION: While there is every reason to remain highly skeptical that North Korea will stick to any agreement it makes given its history of deceit, the two former senators whose names are on landmark nonproliferation legislation are looking at the other side of the coin. What if the diplomacy works?

Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar have an op-ed in today’s Washington Post in which they argue if the broad framework of an agreement is reached between Trump and Kim, their namesake law, written in 1991, could be a useful model for how to proceed.

“Just as we should prepare for the summit to go wrong, we should also prepare for it to ‘go right,’” they write. “Though there are significant differences between North Korea in 2018 and the former Soviet Union in 1991, the cooperative threat-reduction concept could be a powerful tool to support the verifiable reduction and elimination of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal, its other weapons of mass destruction, and their delivery systems.”

DEMS RECRUIT VETS: In their effort to retake the House and Senate in the upcoming midterm elections, Democrats are taking a page of the Republican playbook and recruiting a new crop of military veterans to run for public office, writes Travis Tritten, in this week’s Washington Examiner magazine.

“We’re glad that the Democrats are following our lead after many, many years of recruiting veterans to run for office,” said Jesse Hunt, the national press secretary for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “That’s something that has been part of the fabric of our party for some time now and as you can see there is a bevy of veterans serving on the Republican side in Congress.”

You can read the profiles of some of the candidates here.

NIGER PROBE OVER: The U.S. military’s investigation into last year’s ambush in Niger, in which four U.S. soldiers were killed, has been completed and the notification of families has begun, the Pentagon said yesterday. “We’re currently in the process of briefing the families of those fallen soldiers in order to provide them with the results of the investigation," said Col. Rob Manning, a Pentagon spokesman.

Once the families have been informed, the Pentagon will brief Congress and then release the results of the investigation to the public in a Pentagon press conference that some officials indicated could come as soon as this week. But Manning would say only that the results will be released “in the coming weeks.”

McCAIN IS BACK HOME: Sen. John McCain has returned home after undergoing surgery last week as he continues to fight an aggressive form of brain cancer, according to his wife.

THE RUNDOWN

AP: Pence to name Kellogg as national security adviser

New York Times: An Unpredictable Trump and a Risk-Prone Kim Mean High Stakes and Mismatched Expectations

Bloomberg: Pentagon says Cloud Winner Must Stay Ahead to Extend Contract

Defense One: Defense Department is Pursuing Another Multibillion-Dollar Cloud

Foreign Policy: Bolton’s Pick for Deputy Could Roil Pentagon Relations

Air Force Times: Afghanistan veteran receives world’s first penis and scrotum transplant

CNN: Russia urges Trump to honor Iran nuke deal

Breaking Defense: War Cloud: JEDI To Deploy Backpack Servers To Front Line

Task and Purpose: The ‘Most Powerful’ Helicopter Ever Fielded By The US Is Also The Most Expensive

SpaceNews: Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson in conversation with SpaceNews

Asia Times: China’s First Homemade Carrier Out For Maiden Sea Trial