The Pentagon’s press secretary excoriated the mainstream press, and particularly The Washington Post, at a news briefing Tuesday for the Pentagon’s newly credentialed media representatives, the first such event since Defense Department press restrictions spurred a mass exodus of established news organizations from the building in October.
The “legacy media chose to self-deport” from the Pentagon, Kingsley Wilson, the press secretary, said in her 30-minute briefing for the now largely right-wing press corps. She also criticized lawmakers who counseled military personnel to disobey any illegal orders.
The briefing was part of a three-day orientation package for newly accredited representatives set to culminate in a meet-and-greet Wednesday with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The established press corps turned in their Pentagon press credentials rather than sign a restrictive policy prohibiting them from soliciting any information the government hadn’t authorized for release.
Wilson singled out The Post as “the epitome of fake news” for its report Friday that Hegseth gave a spoken directive on Sept. 2 to kill everyone aboard a vessel the government says was carrying narcotics in the Caribbean Sea, according to two people with direct knowledge of the operation. “The order was to kill everybody,” one of them said. Two people who survived the first strike were killed by a second one.
“It is frankly disgusting that The Washington Post would publish something that is so insanely false,” she said in response to a question, which she did not directly answer, on whether the government would take legal action against The Post.
Since The Post’s story was published, President Donald Trump and his press secretary have defended Hegseth and said he did not know about a second strike, while acknowledging that the military commander involved ordered a second strike that killed survivors of the first strike.
Wilson thanked the New York Times for an account that she said discredited The Post’s reporting. “The Washington Post actually went so far as to falsely attribute a quote to the Secretary of Defense — of War, excuse me — that he never said,” she said. The Post’s report does not quote Hegseth directly, but relies on two unnamed individuals with “direct knowledge of the operation.”
“Thankfully the New York Times stepped in and corrected the record and let the American people know that what they were publishing was absolutely fake news,” Wilson said. A spokesman for the Times declined to comment.
The Most Transparent War Department in History! pic.twitter.com/0wH2Ff5TDL
— Deputy Press Sec Joel Valdez (@JoelValdezDOW) December 2, 2025
In a Monday article, the Times cited five anonymous sources saying that Hegseth ordered a Sept. 2 strike to destroy the boat and kill the people on board. Its sources “did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things,” according to the article. Two people survived the first strike, according to both The Post and Times accounts. Neither account says that Hegseth specifically ordered a second strike to kill the survivors.
“The Washington Post is proud of its rigorous, accurate reporting,” a Post spokesperson said, adding that the New York Times’s reporting on the matter does not discredit or contradict that of The Post.
Wilson also said Hegseth tasked Navy Secretary John Phelan with reviewing statements made by Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Arizona) in a video urging military service members to disobey unlawful orders. Phelan, she said, is to give Hegseth an update on his review on Dec. 10. Wilson called the video, which included similar statements from five other Democratic lawmakers, “an attempt to undermine the chain of command to show distrust and division in our armed forces.”
When one person asked if Kelly, a former naval officer, could be court-martialed, she said “all options are on the table at this moment in time.” A spokesman for Kelly did not respond to a request for comment.
Major news organizations including The Post were not permitted to attend the news briefing, which the department termed “a special orientation” solely for the newly credentialed press. It was the first on-camera Pentagon press briefing since July 2 and the first Wilson has run since she joined the administration in January.
The newly credentialed attendees included the Daily Signal, Townhall, the Gateway Pundit and Real America’s Voice. Right-wing activists Laura Loomer, James O’Keefe, and Jack Posobiec were also in attendance.
Loomer, who sat in the front row, is known for her anti-Muslim rhetoric and her influence with President Donald Trump. Several national security and defense officials she has criticized for insufficient loyalty to the president have been fired.
O’Keefe, a political operative, formerly with Project Veritas, is known for sting operations targeting left-wing groups and journalists. O’Keefe cited an undercover video his team posted in April featuring a DOD official referring to Trump as “illegitimate” and asked what the department was doing to root out insubordination. Wilson said O’Keefe’s work showed “why the work you all do is so important.”
“This is a big building, and we want to make sure that we have the absolute best people … on board and willing to serve our commander in chief,” she said.
Former Rep. Matt Gaetz was also in attendance. Gaetz, who resigned from Congress in 2024 after briefly being Trump’s attorney general nominee, now hosts a show on the right-wing cable channel One America News. He asked what role the Defense Department would have in Venezuela if its president Nicolás Maduro were forced to leave today. (Wilson said the department has “a contingency plan for everything” but provided no detail.)
Breanna Morello, who often appears on Alex Jones’s outlet Infowars, posted a picture on X pointing to a sign reading, “the most transparent War Department ever,” the new term the Trump administration has adopted for the Defense Department. “My coverage on this Pentagon hasn’t always been fluffy pieces, but leadership still granted me access to have a seat in the briefing room,” Morello wrote. “Speaks volumes!” After Morello asked Tuesday morning about sexual assaults by refugees on U.S. military bases, Harrison Smith, a host on Infowars, trumpeted the briefing as a clear success. “What we’re witnessing here is a real sea change. It’s like I’m dreaming or something,” Smith said. “You’ve got a Pentagon press briefing, but I recognize half the people there. … This is crazy. This is awesome.”
Many of the attendees live outside of the Washington area and traveled to be in attendance. One person asked if the department would hold future briefings for the new media, Wilson said the Pentagon would “love to make it a weekly or biweekly tradition.”
Participants who arrived Monday received their badges, a tour of the building, and met with press officials. They also posed for photographs at various empty offices and desks that once belonged to the former press corps.
Some of the new-media invitees entered the press area like conquerors, including R.C. Maxwell, who writes about the Pentagon for the conservative website RedState. “Out with the propagandists and hacks. In with the truth tellers who love America,” he said in a post on X.
Cam Higby, a right-wing content creator, said in a selfie post on X that he was at first confused about which mainstream outlet’s desk he was now occupying but said that wasn’t important. “The point is: we’re in, you’re out,” he wrote.
Idrees Ali, a Pentagon correspondent for Reuters who turned in his credentials and was not at Tuesday’s briefing, challenged the administration’s self-professed commitment to open dialogue. “If this Pentagon is part of the ‘most transparent administration,’” he said in an X post, “why were regular Pentagon reporters denied access to the briefing and the opportunity to ask questions?”
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