— Lawmakers are pushing to keep infrastructure funds away from the Pentagon.

— New legislation would punish DOD for not passing an audit, something the department has never done.

— More ships are entering the Black Sea as tensions rise with Russia.

HAPPY FRIDAY AND WELCOME TO MORNING DEFENSE. We’re filling in for our colleague Bryan Bender this week and are always on the lookout for tips, pitches and feedback. Email us at pmcleary@politico.com and follow on Twitter @paulmcleary, @morningdefense and @politicopro.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Morning Defense will not publish on Monday, July 5. We’ll be back on our normal schedule on Tuesday, July 6. Please continue to follow Pro Defense.

FIRST LOOK — ‘POOR ECONOMIC AND SECURITY SENSE’: Two dozen progressive lawmakers are pressing House and Senate Democratic leaders to rule out more defense money in major infrastructure and jobs legislation. The effort counters a bipartisan push to boost funding to modernize military industrial facilities.

Writing to Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in a letter obtained by POLITICO, 24 House progressives argue that the Pentagon has more than enough money to address its own infrastructure needs, and should do so by cutting waste and weapons spending. Every dollar spent on defense in a larger infrastructure deal, they warned, takes money away from other urgent priorities.

“It makes poor economic and security sense to use this plan to funnel more money into the Pentagon, on top of the three quarters of a trillion dollars per year that it already receives,” the lawmakers wrote. “Doing so will not provide the jobs that Americans need; build a better, greener economy; or make people in this country safer.”

“This bill must not be an excuse to line defense contractors’ pockets,” they warned.

The letter was organized by progressive Reps. Barbara Lee, Mark Pocan and Cori Bush.

Push for defense infrastructure cash: The missive comes as lawmakers in both parties clamor to include their pet priorities in an infrastructure package, with many seeking to upgrade aging defense industrial facilities.

Shipbuilding advocates have argued the legislation should include money to speed up the Navy’s $21 billion, two-decade plan to modernize public shipyards. Boosters of military depots, arsenals, and test and training ranges have also sought money for projects that are often overlooked in the broader defense budget process.

ONE SENATOR’S IDEA: Sen. Tom Cotton on Thursday suggested that officers up for promotion to general or admiral should sit for confirmation hearings so that lawmakers can question them about their views on critical race theory.

Typically, Congress hears testimony from only those officers who have been nominated for a four-star position overseeing a major combatant command. But maybe it’s time that changed, Cotton said during a Heritage Foundation event on critical race theory, in which he said he had received “hundreds” of whistleblower complaints from service members upset about “woke” culture in the military.

“Maybe it’s time we start ensuring that our flag officers subscribe to those very basic principles that are outlined in our Declaration or in [Martin Luther] King’s ‘Dream’ speech,” Cotton said.

AUDIT OUTRAGE: New bipartisan legislation unveiled in the House on Thursday would slash the defense budget each year the Pentagon doesn’t pass an audit, owing to outrage in both parties that the Defense Department has failed to achieve a clean scrub of its books.

The bill, sponsored by Lee and Republican Michael Burgess, would cut the budget of any Pentagon agency that doesn’t achieve a clean audit by half a percent for the first year after enactment and 1 percent each subsequent year.

“The lack of accountability and transparency at the Pentagon is simply outrageous,” Lee said in a statement. “Congress pours trillions of taxpayer dollars into the Pentagon … but we still have no clear idea how that money is being spent. This legislation would be a long overdue step in ensuring transparency and putting an end to the culture of waste, fraud and abuse at the Department of Defense.”

The measure is supported by a handful of watchdog groups on both ends of the political spectrum, including Win Without War, Public Citizen, Taxpayers for Common Sense, FreedomWorks and R Street.

Don’t hold your breath, though. Pentagon leaders estimate all defense agencies won’t achieve a clean audit until at least later in the decade. And tying budget cuts to the audit isn’t likely to gain much traction with defense-oriented lawmakers.

NEW LEADER: The United Nations Command / U.S. Forces Korea’s change of command ceremony took place Thursday night (Friday morning in Korea). Gen. Paul LaCamera, who most recently served as Army Pacific commander, replaced Gen. Robert Abrams as commander of U.S. and allied forces in the country.

HAPPENING TODAY: Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin meets with Tajikistan Minister of Foreign Affairs Sirojiddin Muhriddin this afternoon at the Pentagon.

The meeting comes a day after Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Muhriddin and Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov. The meetings come as the Biden administration is looking for “over the horizon” locations from which to launch airstrikes or special operations raids into Afghanistan. Both countries, which border Afghanistan, have been floated as potential home bases.

BLACK SEA BUILD-UP: More ships from NATO countries entered the Black Sea on Thursday to take part in the annual Sea Breeze military exercise, the U.S.-Ukraine-led naval and ground event that has already seen serious Russian pushback.

Last week, Russian fighter planes buzzed British and Dutch warships in the waterway, and the ships had their automatic identification-systems tracks altered — no one knows by whom — to make them appear to be close to the Russian naval base at Sevastopol in Crimea.

The same thing happened to the destroyer USS Ross on Tuesday, making it appear to be sailing just five miles from the Crimean coast. The U.K. and Dutch ships were actually hundreds of miles away, and the Ross was in port in Odessa, Ukraine. The Navy’s 6th Fleet quickly tweeted the ship’s actual location to try to refute the disinformation campaign.

Will it continue? Retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Europe, told your Morning D correspondent via email that the “Russian reaction was overly dramatic … which I think reveals a lack of self-confidence by the Kremlin in their own illegitimate claims” to Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.

Meanwhile, the 30-nation exercise continues to grow. Ships potters in Turkey noticed the Italian frigate ITS Virginio Fasan — the flagship for NATO Maritime Group Two — passing through the Bosporus into the Black Sea along with a Turkish frigate, headed for Sea Breeze.

They’ll join two U.S. destroyers, a French support ship, the British destroyer HMS Defender, which was harassed by Russian airplanes last week, and the Dutch frigate HNLMS Evertsen, which was also buzzed by Russian aircraft, among ships from Romania and other NATO allies.

VEHICLES TO KUWAIT: The State Department has signed off on a $445 million deal to sell 517 heavy military logistic trucks to Kuwait. “Kuwait will use these heavy vehicles to transport and support heavy equipment, including their legacy M1A2 tanks and their new M1A2K main battle tank slated for delivery in 2021,” a Thursday announcement said.

Wisconsin-based Oshkosh Defense makes the vehicles.

Krister Holladay, former chief of staff for House Appropriations ranking RepublicanKay Granger, is headed to shipping company American President Lines as head of legislative affairs, our colleagues at POLITICO Influence report. Holladay was previously director of government relations for the defense contractor United Technologies, which merged with Raytheon last April.

Veronica Bonilla, media director for defense and commercial industry trade group Aerospace Industries Association, is heading to BAE Systems as director of media relations.

— In launching airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, Biden lowers bar for use of military force: The Washington Post

— B-52 engine replacement could keep bomber flying through its 100th birthday: Defense One

— Cheney joins Dems on Jan. 6 probe, defying McCarthy threat: POLITICO

— After Biden meets Putin, U.S. exposes details of Russian hacking campaign: The New York Times