CIA, Pentagon chiefs hold meeting at White House — pool reporters

CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine are believed to have held a meeting at the White House, journalists from the US administration’s press pool wrote on X.

According to them, Ratcliffe, Hegseth, and Caine left the White House on Wednesday afternoon after a meeting in the West Wing, which houses the Oval Office. The reporters did not specify whether US President Donald Trump took part in the meeting. The White House schedule showed that Trump was due to hold a closed-door intelligence briefing at 11 a.m. local time (3 p.m. GMT).

The CIA chief visited Moscow on August 25. Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Ratcliffe’s trip was related to contacts between the two countries’ intelligence services. In a comment to TASS, Peskov clarified that no meeting between the CIA director and Russian President Vladimir Putin had been planned.