The Daily Scoop Podcast

Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins attempted to assuage lawmakers’ concerns Tuesday over how the agency plans to deliver critical health tech services amid drastic cuts to its workforce. Appearing before the Senate Appropriations Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Collins said the VA is full steam ahead on planned deployments of its oft-troubled electronic health record at additional facilities, and is also pushing forward on the rollout of its External Provider Scheduling tool. The VA said in February that it had dismissed 1,000 employees, while the Associated Press reported in March that it planned to cut 80,000 staffers. The Oracle EHR system, meanwhile — plagued by technical problems since its launch during the first Trump administration — is scheduled to be deployed at 13 medical facilities by 2026. A suite of Elastic products will be discounted for agencies by up to 60% under a new deal announced Tuesday by the General Services Administration. The agreement, part of the GSA’s OneGov strategy to modernize how the government purchases goods and services, will give agencies access to discounts of Elastic’s self-managed solution starting at 27.5%, climbing to higher savings based on governmentwide annual spending. Stephen Ehikian, GSA’s acting administrator, said in a press release that the pact “represents a significant step in our efforts to drive cost efficiencies and modernize IT infrastructure across the federal government.” Additionally, discounts start at 15% for FedRAMP Moderate cloud deployments via GovCloud, jumping to 32% at the top volume tier. The pricing options are locked in for orders made prior to Sept. 30, 2027. 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 CIA, like other agencines in the intelligence community, is exploring how AI can boost its mission on both the human and open-source intelligence domains. As head of the open source enterprise for the CIA’s Directorate of Digital Innovation, Kevin Carlson is helping usher in AI for the OSINT mission set. During a recent interview on the sidelines of the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+ Expo, Carlson shared the potential for AI in open-source intelligence, how the CIA is looking to operationalize AI, the impact of the technology on the CIA workforce, and much more. U.S. Cyber Command played a role in American military’s operation against Iranian nuclear facilities over the weekend, according to top Pentagon officials. Gen. Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in a briefing at the Pentagon Sunday morning that, “The strike package was supported by U.S. Strategic Command, U.S. Transportation Command, U.S. Cyber Command, U.S. Space Command, U.S. Space Force and U.S. European command,” later thanking the cyber operators, among others, who made the mission possible. However, no further details about Cybercom’s efforts were disclosed. The command referred DefenseScoop to the Pentagon for comment, where a spokesperson said they had nothing further to provide at this time beyond the transcript from Sunday’s press conference. Although details about Cybercom’s assistance for Operation Midnight Hammer, the code name for the strikes, remain murky, experts — most of whom spoke to DefenseScoop on condition of anonymity — outlined a number of possibilities for how the organization may have contributed to the effort. As the Army seeks to continue its transformation effort to become more efficient, the department’s chief information officer is looking to streamline systems and processes. And no longer will “that’s the way it’s always been done” be an acceptable justification for maintaining the status quo. There have been directives from top levels of Army leadership to cut down on business systems and automate capabilities where possible. CIO Leonel Garciga said last week at an industry event that there’s a big push right now from the secretary and the chief of staff to question: “do we need all of these systems, why do we have them?” calling some of it really old. Unveiled at the end of April, the Army Transformation Initiative is a top-down effort to improve how the service operates by shrinking headquarters elements, becoming leaner, slashing programs that aren’t efficient and changing how money is spent. The goal is to cut obsolete programs and systems that don’t contribute to success on the modern battlefield. 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.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is looking to hire a company to help it mine through data sources including social media, international trade data, blockchain information, property records, and the dark web — the latest example of the agency looking to beef up the tools and platforms it uses in its enforcement operations. In a government procurement posting published late last month, ICE said it was interested in deploying a service that can continuously monitor a million people or entities of interest — and analyze trends for the purpose of “identifying potentially criminal and fraudulent behavior before crime and fraud can materialize,” among other goals. In a request for information for “Data Analytics” shared by ICE’s investigations and operations support office in suburban Dallas, the government component outlined a range of requirements that it might seek from a contractor, like staff support, data analytics, and access to proprietary data. As the General Services Administration looks to form direct relationships with IT manufacturers to bring better value to agencies through governmentwide deals under its OneGov strategy, it’s going to disrupt a staple of the federal IT acquisition ecosystem: value-added resellers. A significant portion of federal IT contracting traditionally goes through resellers that provide software services on behalf of original equipment manufacturers that often don’t have the experience navigating or selling to the federal government. Those resellers, like Carahsoft, CDW-G and Iron Bow, however, specialize in that and provide additional services like integration, customization and support for commercial IT products. Lawrence Hale, assistant commissioner of the Information Technology Category in GSA’s Federal Acquisition Service, said Wednesday during a webinar hosted by George Mason University’s Baroni Center for Government Contracting that what GSA is trying to do by working directly with the manufacturers is flip that relationship. In going straight to OEMs for IT contracts — as GSA has done now with several vendors like Microsoft, Google, Adobe and Salesforce under its OneGov strategy announced in April — resellers won’t be eliminated. Instead, they can still serve as authorized partners or subcontractors to those IT manufacturers, Hale explained, whereas the opposite is often true today. 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 Defense’s Office of the Chief Information Officer is considering reducing the number of Pentagon employees who have Microsoft 365 E5 licenses, as it works with the Trump administration to rein in federal spending. The DOD currently maintains more than 2 million Microsoft 365 E5 licenses across two separate programs — the Defense Enterprise Office Solution (DEOS) and the Enterprise Software Initiative (DOD ESI). Through the established contracts, Pentagon components can purchase software licenses for commercial Microsoft products, including Office 365 applications and other collaboration tools. But ongoing efforts spearheaded by the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have prompted the Defense Department to review how many of those licenses it actually needs, Katie Arrington, who is performing the duties of Pentagon CIO, told DefenseScoop. Arrington said June 6 in an exclusive interview: “Our Microsoft 365 contract [is a] very big contract here in the Department of Defense. Does every individual in the Department of Defense need an [E5] license? Absolutely not.” With the department’s Deputy CIO for the Information Enterprise Bill Dunlap, Arrington has been working alongside her DOGE representative to review individual position descriptions and multi-level securities to determine what level of Microsoft 365 E5 license that person needs, she said. Other criteria being considered include user and mission requirements for office productivity software, as well as collaboration capabilities, a DOD CIO spokesperson told DefenseScoop. Ten congressional Democrats are demanding answers from Palantir about reports that it is aiding the IRS in building a searchable, governmentwide “mega-database” to house Americans’ sensitive information. In a letter sent Tuesday to Palantir CEO Alex Karp, the lawmakers argued that the creation of a database of that kind likely violates several federal laws, including the Privacy Act. The Democrats wrote: “The unprecedented possibility of a searchable, ‘mega-database’ of tax returns and other data that will potentially be shared with or accessed by other federal agencies is a surveillance nightmare that raises a host of legal concerns, not least that it will make it significantly easier for Donald Trump’s Administration to spy on and target his growing list of enemies and other Americans.” The letter, led by Senate Finance Committee ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., follows New York Times reporting last month that detailed the expansion of Palantir’s federal government work under the Trump administration, noting that the data-mining giant has received $113 million since the president’s January inauguration plus another $795 million award from the Defense Department. According to the Times, Palantir has spoken to IRS and Social Security Administration representatives about buying its tech. The Democrats’ letter said Foundry — a Palantir data analysis and organization product — has been deployed at the departments of Homeland Security and Health and Human Services, as well as the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health. 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.

OpenAI has made massive strides in recent months to position itself as a leading provider of foundational AI to the federal government. In fact, just Monday, the company launched what it’s calling OpenAI for Government, a new initiative focused on bringing its most advanced AI tools to public servants across the United States. A key driver of that work has been Katrina Mulligan, the head of the company’s national security policy and partnerships, who joined the Daily Scoop from the sidelines of the Special Competitive Studies Project’s AI+Expo in Washignton, D.C. During the conversation, Mulligan shared details about new work OpenAI is exploring with the U.S. national labs as well as how the company is navigating the complex federal business landscape. The Department of the Interior is evaluating the use of artificial intelligence as a potential tool to alleviate the backlog of probate cases it manages in tribal communities, per comments from Secretary Doug Burgum and an agency spokesperson. An Interior spokeswoman told FedScoop: “AI technology is being explored to further streamline the probate workflow especially in the realm of data entry and the ability to search multiple databases to find individuals. This is an ongoing internal process.” Michael Boyce, the inaugural leader of the Department of Homeland Security’s AI Corps, has left the position and joined U.S. Digital Response, a nonprofit that works with government agencies on technical projects on a pro-bono basis. Boyce, who stepped down from DHS in April, said in an interview with FedScoop that he’ll be an AI lead and generative AI technologist in residence at USDR focused on helping state and local governments deploy artificial intelligence, drawing on lessons learned from his time at DHS. Boyce’s exit comes amid an exodus of tech talent throughout the Trump administration, which has focused on reducing the workforce and pivoting from the top priorities of the Biden administration. Also in this episode: Mia Jordan, Industry Advisor for Public Sector Transformation at Salesforce, joins SNG host Wyatt Kash in a sponsored podcast discussion about how unified platforms help agencies modernize constituent engagement. This segment was sponsored by Salesforce. 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.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is doubling down on its investment in blockchain intelligence technology, along with other investigative platforms. According to a notice of intent on a government procurement website, the Department of Homeland Security component aims to buy more technology from TRM Labs, which focuses on crypto risk management but also offers a bevy of forensics services for government clients. ICE this week also posted an intent to sole source similar technology from Chainalysis, which comes amid a series of planned purchases for other digital forensics tools. Both Chainalysis and TRM Labs have myriad contracts with federal agencies, including the FBI, the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service. In posting its intent to single source both TRM and Chainalysis technology, ICE is indicating there is no other provider that could reasonably provide the same services. Executives from high-tech firms Meta, OpenAI and Palantir are joining the Army Reserve at the rank of lieutenant colonel to serve in Detachment 201, a new “Executive Innovation Corps,” the service announced Friday. The move is the latest push by the department to tap into capabilities and know-how from Silicon Valley and the commercial sector. The new corps “brings top tech talent into the Army Reserve to bridge the commercial-military tech gap” and is “designed to fuse cutting-edge tech expertise with military innovation,” the Army stated in a press release. On Friday, the service is set to swear-in Meta’s chief technology officer Andrew Bosworth, OpenAI’s chief product officer Kevin Weil, Palantir’s CTO Shyam Sankar and Bob McGrew, an advisor at Thinking Machines Lab who was previously OpenAI’s chief research officer. 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.

After an informative 45-day trial run, the Department of the Navy is getting set to expand its rollout of emerging AI capabilities for sailors, Marines and civilians to speedily adopt in support of their daily operations — via its new DoN GPT tool. Jacob Glassman, who serves as senior technical advisor to the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition, told DefenseScoop Thursday that this is a new way for the Navy to rapidly innovate and rapidly prototype. GenAI encompasses the field of still-maturing technologies that can process huge volumes of data and perform increasingly “intelligent” tasks — like recognizing speech or producing human-like media and code based on human prompts. These capabilities are pushing the boundaries of what existing tech can achieve. Still, according to Glassman, the Navy has historically “struggled with AI adoption.” Amazon has received federal authorizations that allow Anthropic’s Claude and Meta’s Llama AI models to be used within high-sensitivity government computing environments, the company’s cloud computing division announced Wednesday. The company has achieved FedRAMP “High” authorization as well as at the Defense Department’s Impact Levels 4 and 5 for use of the two foundation models in AWS GovCloud, its government cloud environment, according to a blog post by Liz Martin, Department of Defense director at Amazon Web Services. That means it’s met the security requirements needed for the AI models to be used with some of the government’s most sensitive civilian and military information, and per Martin, it’s the first cloud provider to receive that level of authorization for Claude and Llama. 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.

Daily Scoop listeners and readers of FedScoop will recall the shocking news earlier this year when 18F, a decade-old digital services consultancy in the General Services Administration, was shuttered by the Trump administration’s Department of Government Efficiency. Members of the team have banded together since their termination to keep an active presence online through 18F.org in the wake of their dismantling. But the group isn’t going out without a fight. Several senior members of 18F in late May filed a class action appeal to the Merit System Protection Board claiming that GSA lacked a “valid reason” for firing them and targeted them as an act of “retaliation” for their political beliefs. In the appeal, they call for a hearing and to have their removal reversed. Lindsay Young is the former executive director of 18F and one of the name appellants representing the class in the appeal. She joins the podcast for a conversation about how the “deletion” of 18F went down, what she and her team have been doing since, and what they hope to accomplish with the appeal. U.S. officials violated federal privacy law and flouted cybersecurity protocol in sharing Office of Personnel Management records with DOGE affiliates, a federal district court judge in New York ruled Monday, granting a request for a preliminary injunction against the administration. In a 99-page order, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York concluded that federal worker and union plaintiffs had shown that the government defendants in the challenge shared OPM records with “individuals who had no legal right of access to those records” in violation of the Privacy Act of 1974 and cybersecurity standards. “This was a breach of law and of trust,” Cote said in the order. “Tens of millions of Americans depend on the Government to safeguard records that reveal their most private and sensitive affairs.” The ruling is the latest in a challenge to DOGE’s data access at OPM brought by a coalition of federal unions and current and former government employees or contractors. A new executive order from President Donald Trump aims to boost drone manufacturing in the United States, an effort the administration hopes will spur productivity and technological development and secure the country’s industrial base. Meanwhile, a second executive order aims to combat the risk that, as drone usage proliferates, the technology could also be used to threaten public safety and endanger critical infrastructure. The “Unleashing American Drone Dominance” and “Restoring American Airspace Sovereignty” executive orders, both signed last Friday, come amid growing concerns about the operation of the National Airspace System, the airspace the Federal Aviation Administration monitors for commercial flights, space launches, and other aerial activity. Drones, sometimes called unmanned aerial systems, are also used to smuggle drugs and assist in criminal activity. Unauthorized UASs have increasingly shown up near some nuclear facilities, military bases, and commercial airports, raising concerns, too. The new executive order on airspace sovereignty aims to combat the problem, broadly charging federal agencies to detect drone activity, which will require the use of tracking and identification technology. 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 handed a win to President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency on Friday, granting the efficiency unit access to records at the Social Security Administration. The unsigned opinion provides the Elon Musk-associated DOGE with even more access to sensitive government information to fulfill its mission of making government more efficient. Just last month, the team also gained access to payment systems at the Department of Treasury. The ruling also comes at an awkward time for the DOGE, as Musk — its creator — and Trump are in the midst of an apparent falling out on social media. Per the decision, a majority of the justices voted to grant the administration’s request to stay a lower court decision and concluded that “SSA may proceed to afford members of the SSA DOGE Team access to the agency records in question in order for those members to do their work.” Justices voted on political lines, with liberals Elena Kagan, Ketanji Brown Jackson and Sonia Sotomayor saying they would have denied the government’s application for a stay. Simultaneously on Friday, the Supreme Court handed a second win to the DOGE, shielding it from producing documents as part of a discovery process in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit. More federal workers would have access to artificial intelligence training under a bill reintroduced in the House on Thursday by Rep. Nancy Mace. The AI Training Extension Act of 2025 aims to expand the Artificial Intelligence Training for the Acquisition Workforce Act, which was signed into law by President Joe Biden in 2022, by offering available AI training to more pools of federal employees beyond the acquisition workforce, including “supervisors, managers, and frontline staff in data and technology roles,” according to a release from the South Carolina Republican’s office. Chair of the House Oversight Subcommittee on Cybersecurity, Information Technology, and Government Innovation, Mace previously introduced the bill in 2023 during the 118th Congress with Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., who passed away last month. Rep. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, is a co-sponsor of the reintroduced bill. 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.

Anthropic announced Thursday that it is releasing Claude Gov to U.S. national security customers, an exclusive set of artificial intelligence models that is already in the hands of some government agencies. The new government AI product, which Anthropic detailed in a blog post, comes as several companies compete to sell emerging technology tools to federal agencies. At stake is new business — and the prestige of working on serious government missions. Earlier this year, OpenAI released ChatGPT Gov, a specialized version of its chatbot. The company recently announced that the Space Force and the Air Force Research Lab were the product’s first customers. Meanwhile, Department of Government Efficiency representatives have reportedly been advocating for the use of Grok — the chatbot produced by Elon Musk’s firm xAI — within the Department of Homeland Security. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick announced plans this week to “reform” the department’s AI Safety Institute into a new body called the Center for AI Standards and Innovation. The new name signals a shift away from the term “safety” and toward a desire for rapid development of the technology, though the primary role of the renamed body appears to be more or less the same. The center, like the AISI, will continue to evaluate the capabilities and vulnerabilities of the growing technology and serve as the primary point of contact for industry in the government. “For far too long, censorship and regulations have been used under the guise of national security. Innovators will no longer be limited by these standards,” Lutnick said in a written statement. “CAISI will evaluate and enhance U.S. innovation of these rapidly developing commercial AI systems while ensuring they remain secure to our national security standards.”