{"id":301322,"date":"2026-09-29T11:45:52","date_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:45:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/?p=301322"},"modified":"2026-09-29T11:52:49","modified_gmt":"2026-09-29T07:52:49","slug":"the-pentagon-chief-has-ordered-the-military-to-protect-the-u-s-midterm-elections-from-foreign-interference","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/news\/301322\/","title":{"rendered":"The Pentagon chief has ordered the military to protect the U.S. midterm elections from foreign interference"},"content":{"rendered":"<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\">\n<html><body><p>Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has signed a memorandum directing the Department of War to mobilize a comprehensive, whole-of-government defense of our election infrastructure from foreign adversaries. The document has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.war.gov\/News\/Releases\/Release\/Article\/4613090\/secretary-of-war-pete-hegseth-signs-directive-to-defend-2026-elections-from-for\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">published<\/a> on the defense agency&rsquo;s website.<\/p>\n<p>Under the Secretary&rsquo;s directive, U.S. Cyber Command and Combat Support Agencies will prioritize and deploy advanced intelligence and cyber capabilities to identify, disrupt, and neutralize foreign interference in U.S. democratic processes.<\/p>\n<p>The Department will effectively wield its capabilities to protect and uphold the reliability of America&rsquo;s voting mechanisms against external manipulation and disruption from foreign actors.<\/p>\n<p>US congressional elections are scheduled for November 3, taking place midway through the incumbent president&rsquo;s term. Voters will elect all 435 members of the House of Representatives and approximately one-third of the 100 senators. Republicans currently control both chambers of Congress; however, the Financial Times (FT) has reported that these elections will be challenging for them.<\/p>\n<p>According to a poll by Focaldata, registered voters are more likely to say they intend to vote for Democrats (44% versus 39% for Republicans). Although the president&rsquo;s name will not appear on the ballot in November, midterm elections are typically viewed as a referendum on his performance. Data from the FT indicates that an increasing number of citizens express dissatisfaction with the policies of the White House incumbent.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Secretary of War Pete Hegseth has signed a memorandum directing the Department of War to mobilize a comprehensive, whole-of-government defense of our election infrastructure from foreign adversaries. The document has been published on the defense agency&rsquo;s website. Under the Secretary&rsquo;s directive, U.S. Cyber Command and Combat Support Agencies will prioritize and deploy advanced intelligence and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":301317,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,35,43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-301322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-politics","category-world"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301322"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":301323,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301322\/revisions\/301323"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/301317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abcmedia.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}