Vice President Mike Pence will deliver a message Thursday at the Pentagon, where he is expected to lay out a plan for the Space Force for which President Donald Trump has been pushing.
Pence will participate in an Honor Guard Ceremony at the Pentagon at 10:30 Thursday morning before participating in a briefing with Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis.
At 11:15 a.m., the vice president will deliver “remarks regarding the future of the U.S. military in space,” according to a schedule provided by his office.
News of Pence’s speech to lay out the need and a plan for the creation of the new military branch broke Wednesday:
Sec. Mattis confirmed to reporters Tuesday that the White House, Defense Department, and Pence are in “complete agreement” on creating the new Space Force. Mattis said at the time that they were working through the details: “The vice president is kind of the point man for the president on this, we are working daily with his office and with supporters on Capitol Hill and the relevant committees.”
Trump has been promoting the idea of creating a U.S. Space Force and in mid-June announced he would direct the Pentagon to create the new “separate, but equal” branch of U.S. military. The president made the comments at a White House space travel event and meeting of the National Space Council. He directed comments at Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to make sure he got the message, saying, “It is not enough to have an American presence in space; we must have an American dominance in space.”
Trump said at the June White House event, “For too many years, our dreams of exploration and discovery were really squandered by politics and bureaucracy, and we knocked that out.” He emphasized the importance of leading in space, not letting countries like China and Russia take the lead.
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook.