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Ben Wolfgang

Ben Wolfgang

bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com

Ben Wolfgang is a national security correspondent at The Washington Times, a senior member of its Threat Status team, and the host and producer of the award-winning Threat Status Podcast. Ben covers national security, foreign policy, military affairs, the defense industry and the rapidly evolving landscape of military technology.
A Pennsylvania native, he joined The Washington Times in 2011 after serving as a political reporter at The Republican-Herald in Pottsville, Pa. Over the course of his career, Ben has covered the White House, Congress, and four presidential campaigns.
His reporting has earned recognition from some of journalism's most respected organizations, including the Virginia Press Association and the Society of Professional Journalists' Washington, D.C. Chapter, among other honors.
Ben has interviewed heads of state, chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, senior military commanders, cabinet secretaries, senior government officials, and the CEOs of many of the nation's largest and most influential defense companies.
Ben is a frequent guest on broadcast media, with appearances on C-SPAN, the Sirius XM POTUS channel, and other outlets.
He can be reached at bwolfgang@washingtontimes.com.

Articles by Ben Wolfgang

In this Dec. 14, 2012, file photo, Robert and Alissa Parker, at right, leave a firehouse staging area following a shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. Gunman Adam Lanza opened fire inside the school, killing 26 children and adults, including the Parkers' daughter Emilie Parker, 6. (AP Photo/Jessica Hill, File)

A year after Newtown, answers and action remain elusive

One year after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., all sides of the debate — from President Obama and single-issue groups led by outgoing New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and others to powerful gun advocacy voices — sound much the same as they did 12 months ago in the immediate aftermath of one of the worst shootings in American history.

December 14, 2013
Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer noted during arguments Tuesday the fact the Environmental Protection Agency has been granted by courts wide latitude in how it interprets the Clean Air Act. (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

High court likely to allow Obama’s clean-air rules

The fate of key clean-air regulations — central to the President Obama's larger environmental agenda — now rests with the Supreme Court, which on Tuesday hinted it may throw the administration a lifeline and allow controversial pollution rules to be reinstated.

December 10, 2013
North Carolina and Gov. Pat McCrory, a Republican, are the latest to come under direct fire from a White House that admittedly is waging a full-blown PR offensive on Medicaid expansion in response to Obamacare's rocky rollout. (Associated Press)

White House PR blitz hits states that rejected Medicaid expansion

The Obama administration's all-out public relations push to sell its health care reform law increasingly is targeting individual governors, who will bear much of the blame, the White House says, if millions of poor Americans remain uninsured.

December 9, 2013
** FILE ** This Nov. 17, 2001 file photo shows Nelson Mandela and his wife Graca Machel sharing a private moment during a ceremony to rename a school Nelson Mandela Park Public School in Toronto. The former South African president, who spent much of 2013 in and out of the hospital, died Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013 at age 95. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Frank Gunn)

Obama: Nelson Mandela now ‘belongs to the ages’

President Obama was a junior senator from Illinois and was only beginning his meteoric political rise, which ultimately propelled him into the White House in 2008 and into the history books as America's first black president. Nelson Mandela, by contrast, was nearing the end of his incredible journey, having emerged from decades in prison during South Africa's dark apartheid era to become his own nation's first black leader.

December 5, 2013
President Barack Obama speaks about the new health care law during a White House Youth Summit, Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Obama returns to class warfare as poll numbers plunge

Turning his attention yet again to the economy, President Obama on Wednesday zeroed in on the "defining challenge" of this generation — growing income inequality between the richest 1 percent and the rest of America.

December 4, 2013
President Barack Obama gestures as he speaks about the new health care law, Tuesday, Dec. 3, 2013, in the South Court Auditorium in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House complex in Washington. The president said his signature health care law "is working and will work into the future." Obama said the benefits of the law have "gotten lost" in recent months as attention focused on the widespread problems that crippled the website where people can sign up for health insurance. On stage with the president are Americans the White House says have gained as a result of the Affordable Care Act. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Obama: ‘We’re not going back’ on Obamacare

He stopped short of declaring "mission accomplished," but President Obama on Tuesday offered another full-throated defense of his landmark health-care reform law, sidestepping the lingering problems and stating flatly that Obamacare has been and will continue to be a success for the American people.

December 3, 2013
** FILE ** In this Oct. 30, 2013, file photo, President Barack Obama speaks at Boston's historic Faneuil Hall about the federal health care law. (AP Photo/Stephan Savoia, File)

Obama to take second swing at health care reform pitch

President Obama has embraced his role as the nation's most famous salesman, pitching his namesake health care reform law to uninsured Americas and seeking to convince them that problems with Obamacare — chief among them a faulty website — will be fixed.

December 3, 2013
Education Secretary Arne Duncan has championed the Common Core system but apologized for saying the program's critics are driven by "white suburban moms" who fear their children's test scores will drop as a result of more rigorous standards. (Associated Press)

Common Core education supporters want Obama administration to shut up

The Obama administration's cheerleading for the Common Core State Standards Initiative is designed to calm critics and rally supporters for the ambitious overhaul of the nation's elementary and secondary school curriculums. But that effort may be backfiring.

December 2, 2013
White House press secretary Jay Carney answers a question during the daily press briefing, Monday, Dec. 2, 2013, in the White House briefing room in Washington. Carney answered questions on the ongoing rollout of the Healthcare.gov website. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)

Obama administration: Private sector runs better websites

Those visiting HealthCare.Gov still are experiencing delays, a fact that demonstrates how the private sector simply is better than the government when it comes to building a functional website, according to the White House.

December 2, 2013
"There are certain circumstances where it is not feasible to have independent journalists in the room," White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest said. (Associated Press)

White House seen shaping image by limiting access

A picture may be worth 1,000 words, but the Obama administration's controls on photojournalists may say even more about how this White House sees the role of a free press in the digital age, analysts say.

December 1, 2013
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the James Brady Press Briefing Room of the White House in Washington, Thursday, Nov. 21, 2013. The president said he supports the move by Senate Democrats to make it harder for Republicans to block his nominees. Obama spoke shortly after the Senate voted 52-48 to weaken the power of the filibuster. The rule change will make it harder for minority Republicans to block confirmation of the president's nominees for judges and other top posts.(AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Obama touts successes, singles out ‘reckless’ tea party

President Obama on Saturday again tried to turn attention away from his troubled health-care reform law and to other issues, while also placing the blame for Washington dysfunction and gridlock squarely on the shoulders of "a reckless few" — a clear shot at tea party Republicans in the House.

November 23, 2013