The Pentagon’s latest round of press restrictions go too far, according to the president.
Donald Trump criticized the War Department while en route to Charlie Kirk’s memorial service Sunday, scolding the defense agency for forbidding reporters from publishing “unauthorized” reports—even if they’re founded on nonclassified information.
“Should the Pentagon be part of deciding what reporters can report on?” a reporter asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” Trump responded, steps away from Marine One. “Nothing stops reporters. You know that.”
Unfortunately, a government’s white-knuckled control on the flow of information does stop reporters from disseminating information. Under War Secretary Pete Hegseth’s new rules, journalists are required to pledge that they would not report on anything from the department that had not been approved for official release. The new policy, announced Friday, would have journalists either report government-sponsored propaganda or have their press credentials revoked.
But even those inside the Pentagon are not on board with Hegseth’s Orwellian scheme. By Monday, three Pentagon officials had already decried the initiative, with one insider telling The Intercept that the rules were a “mockery of American ideals.”
“The idea they want editorial control over the press is something I expect from a banana republic, not the United States,” the same official told The Intercept.
Representatives for America’s media institutions, meanwhile, came out in full force against the restrictions.
“This is a direct assault on independent journalism at the very place where independent scrutiny matters most: the U.S. military,” National Press Club president Mike Balsamo said in a statement. “If the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting. It is getting only what officials want them to see. That should alarm every American.”
For months, paranoia in the Pentagon has swelled while Hegseth’s inner circle has continued to shrink. This latest act of censorship is another step in Hegesth’s long journey to rein in his department. So far during the Fox News star’s short tenure atop the military agency, the Pentagon has experienced several astounding leaks that have rattled the Trump administration and its credibility on the international stage.
Those include instances in which The Atlantic’s editor in chief was invited into a Signal group chat between multiple Trump officials where they discussed real-time updates to a U.S. airstrike in Yemen, and another eyebrow-raising situation in which Hegesth intervened in U.S. foreign policy by suspending an aid shipment to Ukraine without notifying anyone—including the president.
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