The Daily Scoop Podcast

President Donald Trump signed an executive order Thursday to establish a new classification of federal workers in policy-related roles who aren’t career civil servants called “Schedule G.” The schedule appears to create another avenue for political officials in the U.S. government and follows myriad efforts by the Trump administration to reshape the federal workforce, including reductions-in-force, terminations, and programs to incentivize worker departures. In a fact sheet accompanying the order, the White House described Schedule G as an effort to increase “the horsepower for agency implementation of Administration policy” and fill a gap in federal hiring classifications. Per the fact sheet, existing schedules don’t “provide for non-career appointments to policy-making or policy-advocating roles.” Federal workers at the General Services Administration are increasingly using the agency’s internal AI chatbot GSAi on an everyday basis, the agency’s acting head said Thursday. Stephen Ehikian, GSA’s acting administrator and deputy administrator, offered a glimpse into how the agency is utilizing AI for its day-to-day activities during an appearance at GovExec’s Government Efficiency Summit. “Fifty percent, on average, of GSA employees are using this tool every single day,” Ehikian said of GSAi. It is not clear how this percentage was determined. The agency revealed the tool in March, touting it as a way to boost efficiency and help automate repetitive tasks within the federal government. Like other AI chatbots available to the public, the GSAi tool was designed to respond to user prompts and assist in basic tasks. Nearly four months later, workers are now turning to GSAi for a range of activities, Ehikian said, “from writing descriptions of properties before we send them to markets, to contracting officers using it to review contracts or thinking of outcome-based pricing initiatives, to people learning how to code.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Department of Veterans Affairs’ acting chief information officer doubled down on the agency’s reshaping of its IT workforce, telling lawmakers in a Monday hearing that change is “challenging” but “necessary.” Eddie Pool told members of the House VA’s subcommittee on technology modernization that the agency’s Office of Information and Technology (OIT) is pushing forward with workforce reductions as the division increasingly turns to automation and other technology modernization efforts. “This reorganization, reallocation of positions, is designed to cut bureaucratic overhead, accelerate decision making and focus every OIT position on delivering secure, reliable and modern IT solutions to improve veterans’ lives,” Pool said in opening remarks at the hearing. Subcommittee Chair Tom Barrett, R-Mich., lauded the VA OIT’s “smarter, not bigger” strategy in its fiscal 2026 budget request, asking Pool if technology improvements can alleviate the need for manual, human processes. “Absolutely,” Pool responded. “It is about automating what we can automate.” In its fiscal 2026 budget, the VA OIT requested funding to support approximately 7,000 full-time equivalent employees, marking an 11.7% decrease from its fiscal 2025 budget request, according to Carol Harris, the director of information technology and cybersecurity for the Government Accountability Office. Former White House national security adviser Mike Waltz brushed aside criticisms Tuesday that he put sensitive military operations at risk by holding discussions about military strikes in a Signal group chat, claiming the app’s use was authorized by the federal government’s top civilian cyber agency. In a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing, Waltz — who has been nominated to represent the U.S. at the United Nations — was pressed about his short tenure as President Donald Trump’s top national security official. In particular, he was grilled by Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., for his use of the end-to-end encrypted messaging application Signal to coordinate with other officials over airstrikes on Houthi rebels.While much of the initial attention was focused on Waltz adding journalist Jeffrey Goldberg to the chat, national security experts were also aghast by government officials at the highest levels coordinating highly sensitive military operations using a free application. The incident is widely viewed as contributing to Waltz’s departure just months after leaving Congress to take the role, and his subsequent shuffling to a new nomination at the U.N. “The use of Signal is not only … authorized; it was recommended in the Biden-era CISA guidance,” he said. Waltz was referencing a piece of 2024 guidance put out by CISA on mobile security. He later read from a portion of the guidance, which recommended using “only end-to-end encrypted communication” and to “adopt a free messaging application to secure communications that guarantees end to end encryption, particularly if you are a highly targeted individual, such as Signal or other apps.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Elon Musk's xAI is making headlines with its new generative AI tool, Grok, aimed at U.S. government officials. The move follows recent controversies and involves partnerships with the Defense Department. The podcast dives into how Grok will be used across federal agencies and discusses major Pentagon contracts awarded to various AI companies, including xAI. These contracts focus on enhancing national security through innovative artificial intelligence technologies, promising a revolution in military operations.

Employees at the General Services Administration appear poised to test Grok 3, the artificial intelligence tool built by Elon Musk’s company xAI, according to a GitHub page referencing the agency’s work. The GitHub page operated by GSA and its digital government group Technology Transformation Services references the Grok AI model as one it is testing and that the team is actively discussing as part of its 10x AI Sandbox. A GSA spokesperson told FedScoop in a response to an inquiry about the agency’s work with Grok “GSA is evaluating the use of several top-tier AI solutions to empower agencies and our public servants to best achieve their goals. We welcome all American companies and models who abide by our terms and conditions.”A post from Tuesday shows what appears to be one GSA employee trying to access Grok 3 for testing, but struggling to do so. Several names of the people active on the GitHub page match those of workers affiliated with GSA. The 10x AI Sandbox project is described on GitHub as “a venture studio in collaboration with the General Services Administration (GSA). Its primary goal is to enable federal agencies to experiment with artificial intelligence (AI) in a secure, FedRAMP-compliant environment.” It continues: “By providing access to base models from leading AI companies and offering advanced UI features, the sandbox empowers agencies to test and validate new AI use cases efficiently.” The public version of the 10x AI Sandbox project page on GitHub was taken down after the publication of this story, redirecting now to a 404 error page. Interest in testing Grok comes as GSA continues to work on GSAi, an artificial intelligence tool built by the agency and meant to help employees access multiple AI models. At launch, the GSAi tool included access to several systems, including tools from Anthropic and Meta. Notably, Grok came under fire last week after promoting various antisemitic statements on the Musk-owned social media platform X. A top digital rights group is pushing back on the IRS’s data-sharing agreement with the Department of Homeland Security, writing in a new court filing that the pact violates federal tax code and fails to take into account the real-world consequences of bulk data disclosure. In an amicus brief filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argued that the “historical context” of the tax code section that ensures confidentiality of returns and return information “favors a narrow interpretation of disclosure provisions.” EFF also made the case for why the bulk disclosure of taxpayer information — in this case to Immigration and Customs Enforcement — is especially harmful due to “record linkage errors” that set the stage for “an increase in mistaken and dangerous ICE enforcement actions against taxpayers.” Nonprofit groups sued the Trump administration in March, shortly after the data-sharing deal between the IRS and ICE was announced. Soon after, the tax agency’s then-acting commissioner resigned, reportedly in protest. In May, a Trump-appointed federal judge refused to block the agreement, allowing the IRS to continue delivering taxpayer data to ICE. The ruling, DHS said in a statement, was “a victory for the American people and for common sense.” As the D.C. Circuit Court considers the appeal, the Electronic Frontier Foundation wants to make sure that the “historical context” of tax and privacy law is taken into account. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Nand Mulchandani’s time as chief technologist for the CIA has come to an end. In an email to FedScoop, Mulchandani announced that his last day with the intelligence agency was June 21, exactly three years to the day that he was sworn in as its first CTO in 2022. Though he’s stepping down from the CTO role and as a full-time agency employee, Mulchandani said he will retain a role as an adviser to the CIA. Separately, in a public post on LinkedIn, he said he’s “planning to return to my roots in the tech industry as an entrepreneur, board member and advisor, and to spend time in academia.” Playfully, he now lists his latest role on his LinkedIn profile as the founder of an entity called “Sharks with Lasers,” a comical reference to the concept brought to life by Dr. Evil in the film “Austin Powers in Goldmember.” Mulchandani wrote: “I’ll deeply miss the Agency, its mission, and my friends and colleagues there, and will always be grateful for an experience that was, in every way, life changing.” Mulchandani also spent three years in the Department of Defense as chief technology officer for the Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, a predecessor organization for what is now the Chief Digital and AI Office. There, he played an important role in institutionalizing the Pentagon’s centralized AI capacity. After nearly three decades of federal service, Winston Beauchamp announced on July 4 that he’s departing from his role within the Department of the Air Force. Beauchamp began working for the department in 2015, and most recently served as the director of security, special program oversight and information protection within the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force. In that role, he oversaw the Air and Space Forces’ highly-classified special access programs (SAP) and worked on insider threat mitigation. But Beauchamp’s 29-year career spans across multiple positions at the Department of the Air Force, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). By and large, he either led or was involved in several critical events within the national security space — so much so that someone once described him as “the Forrest Gump of the national security world.” In an exclusive interview with DefenseScoop, Beauchamp shard more about his decadeslong career and what’s on the horizon with his departure. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday lifted a district court order that prevented multiple federal agencies from carrying out reductions-in-force, clearing the way for those actions to resume. In an unsigned opinion, a majority of the justices granted the government’s request for a stay of the lower court ruling, concluding that it will likely be successful on its argument that President Donald Trump’s executive order directing agencies to make plans for RIFs and corresponding guidance from the White House were lawful. The justices, however, also emphasized that their ruling doesn’t express a view on the legality of RIF or reorganization plans under that order and memo. The district court’s preliminary injunction hinged on that court’s view that Trump’s order and the Office of Management and Budget’s memo were unlawful and not on any of the plans specifically. Under the injunction from the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a wide array of federal agencies were required to halt their RIF plans — which included the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of State, Department of Commerce, and many more. It also prompted OMB to pause reviewing or discussing those plans with agencies, per FedScoop reporting. While other legal challenges are moving forward on agency RIFs, the Supreme Court’s ruling, at least for now, means they can begin those actions again. Anthropic is making the enterprise version of its chatbot Claude available to the entire staff of the Lawrence Livermore National Lab, the artificial intelligence company announced Wednesday. The expansion comes as generative AI companies look to deepen their relationship with the federal government’s national lab system — and amid growing interest in agencies’ use of the technology. Anthropic said the expansion comes after a pilot, as well as an event in March that allowed thousands of scientists based at the California lab to learn about the technology. The company said the program, which involves its Claude for Enterprise product, constitutes one of the most significant lab deployments of AI at the Energy Department. As many as ten thousand national lab employees will now be able to use generative AI for their work. Lawrence Livermore will eventually have access to a forthcoming FedRAMP High service, once it’s approved and accredited, meaning lab scientists will be able to use Claude on unclassified data that requires that level of accreditation. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

Alan Sim, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s chief data officer, announced his departure from the agency after nearly five years in the position, per a post he wrote on social media Monday. Sim took on the role of chief data officer in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic and over the years has been a leader on initiatives such as the agency’s generative AI projects. Reflecting on his time, Sim pointed to several “firsts” the agency achieved, including launching its enterprise data catalog and using data and cloud technologies to improve emergency response. “It is with mixed emotions that I announce my departure from the CDC,” Sim wrote in a post to LinkedIn. His time as CDC’s data leader was his second run at the agency. Sim, who has a PhD in epidemiology, had also been a graduate fellow and then a health informatics scientist at CDC early on in his career in the late 90s to the early 2000s. In his post, Sim said that period was “defined by concerns like bioterrorism, Anthrax, and SARS.” “Returning in 2020 as CDC’s Chief Data Officer during the worst pandemic in our nation’s history was both a significant challenge and a profound opportunity,” Sim said. Sim didn’t include details about his next steps but said he would be sharing more soon. It is unclear who the acting CDO is in his absence. The General Services Administration struck a deal with Oracle as part of its OneGov strategy to provide a variety of cheaper services to federal agencies, including a 75% discount for license-based Oracle Technology Programs. Under OneGov, GSA wants to work directly with original equipment manufacturers like Oracle to negotiate better governmentwide terms for commercial technology. On top of the 75% discount for licensed technology such as database, integration, security, and analytics services, Oracle will also offer “substantial base discounts” for its Oracle Cloud Infrastructure services, GSA announced Monday. Oracle is now the latest of several technology vendors, including Adobe, Google, Salesforce and others, to negotiate a OneGov deal with GSA. This deal, however, comes with some additional terms beyond discounts that stand to benefit federal agencies as they modernize their IT infrastructures. In particular, Oracle won’t charge data egress fees when agencies move their “existing workloads from Oracle Government Clouds to another cloud service provider’s FedRAMP Moderate, High or DOD IL 4, 5 Cloud,” GSA said in its release. The company will also promote pricing parity with other competing commercial cloud providers, “with no additional security or government uplifts ever charged in the Oracle cloud.” The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Chinese hackers behind the massive telecommunications sector breach are “largely contained” and “dormant” in the networks, “locked into the location they’re in” and “not actively infiltrating information,” the top FBI cyber official told CyberScoop. But Brett Leatherman, new leader of the FBI Cyber division, said in a recent interview that doesn’t mean the hackers, known as Salt Typhoon, no longer pose a threat. While there’s been some debate about whether Salt Typhoon should be getting more attention than fellow Chinese hackers Volt Typhoon — whom federal officials have said are prepositioned in U.S. critical infrastructure, poised for destructive action in the event of a conflict with the United States — Leatherman said the groups aren’t as different as some think. The number of telecommunications companies victimized in the United States stands at nine, according to Leatherman. The Pentagon’s artificial intelligence acceleration hub recently moved to terminate its chief technology officer role and directorate after reviews associated with the Trump administration’s spending and staff reductions campaign revealed inefficiencies, budget materials for fiscal 2026 reveal. Details on the decision are sparse in the documents, but officials wrote that the Chief Digital and AI Office’s CTO “no longer exists or manages resources.” President Donald Trump directed federal agencies at the start of his second term to drastically reduce their workforces and assess existing contracts, with aims to ultimately cut back on what his team views as wasteful spending and inefficiencies. The efforts have included initiatives overseen by Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, teams. While AI is a major priority for the U.S. government under Trump, since then, the Pentagon’s CDAO has seen an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

President Donald Trump submitted a nomination Tuesday for Ryan Cote to serve as assistant secretary of information and technology and CIO of the Department of Veterans Affairs. If confirmed by Senate vote, it would be Cote’s second run as a CIO under Trump. He served in the IT chief role at the Department of Transportation during the first Trump administration. Cote started his career as a U.S. Marine but went on to hold jobs in technology at firms like HP, Northrop Grumman, Gartner and IBM, before he entered federal service in 2019 at Transportation. Since leaving government at the end of Trump’s first term, Cote has served as a board adviser for a company called Nubeva and as a so-called “private” global CIO, according to his LinkedIn profile. The VA has been without a Senate-confirmed CIO since the Trump administration took office. Kurt DelBene held the role during the previous administration. Eddie Pool, the agency’s deputy CIO for connectivity and collaboration services, has been serving as the acting CIO. The Department of Defense is standing up a joint interagency task force to tackle drone threats, according to a senior officer. “We recently did a session with the secretary of defense and we are going to stand up a joint interagency task force” focused on thwarting drones, Gen. James Mingus, vice chief of staff of the Army, said during an event Wednesday co-hosted by AUSA and the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Counter-unmanned aerial systems (C-UAS), as it is known in DOD parlance, is a key challenge for the military. Commercial technology has evolved in recent years such that drones on the civilian market are extremely cheap to buy and simple to operate. It has also become less challenging to 3D print parts and devices that can fly. This has made it significantly easier for nation-states and terrorist groups to procure these types of systems and strap bombs to them, allowing adversaries to level the playing field against higher-tech combatants such as the U.S. military. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.

The Office of Management and Budget has issued its version of guidance on annual artificial intelligence use case reporting within agencies, outlining a similar process to the previous administration, albeit slimmer. That guidance obtained by FedScoop is dated June 27 and has been shared internally in the federal government but hasn’t been made public. It’s accompanied by a document breaking down the questions in the various fields. The move suggests that despite the Trump White House’s markedly different tone on AI, some details may not look so different. Despite President Donald Trump’s criticism of President Joe Biden’s handling of AI, including the immediate rescission of his AI executive order, the updated process will ask agencies to provide much of the same information, including the stage of development, whether it was developed in-house or purchased, and whether the use case involves personally identifiable information maintained by the agency, among other categories. Ultimately, it sets a compilation deadline of Nov. 4 and a publication deadline of Dec. 2, maintaining a similar schedule to the previous year. The General Services Administration mandated in June that all multiple award schedule contract holders will be required to report transactional data beginning in fiscal 2026, expanding a pilot that the agency launched nearly a decade ago. However, GSA’s Office of the Inspector General takes objection to that decision to institutionalize the transactional data reporting (TDR) pilot because it says the agency “has never effectively implemented TDR and has never made it functional,” according to a new report. GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service launched the TDR pilot in 2016, asking contractors in select product lines to share data on government purchases with the intent of driving better buying decisions. In fiscal 2024, the agency expanded the TDR pilot program to encompass 67 categories of products — what GSA refers to as special item numbers (SINs). But along the way, the program has struggled with data quality issues, limited usage in pricing decisions and a lack of competitive pricing actions, the IG points out in the new report. “Ultimately, the TDR pilot has been in effect within the MAS program for 9 years and has yet to accomplish its intended purpose,” it states. The Daily Scoop Podcast is available every Monday-Friday afternoon. If you want to hear more of the latest from Washington, subscribe to The Daily Scoop Podcast  on Apple Podcasts, Soundcloud, Spotify and YouTube.