Secretary of Protection Pete Hegseth attends a Cupboard assembly on the White Home on April 10, 2025 in Washington, DC. President Trump convened a Cupboard assembly a day after saying a 90-day pause on ‘reciprocal’ tariffs, excluding China.
Anna Moneymaker | Getty Photos
Bedeviled by leaks to the media throughout his brief tenure, Protection Secretary Pete Hegseth issued a sequence of restrictions on the press late Friday that embrace banning reporters from getting into large swaths of the Pentagon and not using a authorities escort — areas the place the press has had entry in previous administrations because it covers the actions of the world’s strongest army.
Newly restricted areas embrace his workplace and people of his high aides and the entire totally different places throughout the mammoth constructing the place the Military, Air Drive, Navy, Marine Corps and Area Drive keep press workplaces.
The media can even be barred from workplaces of the Pentagon’s senior army management, together with Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, with out Hegseth’s approval and an escort from his aides. The workers of the Joint Chiefs has historically maintained a superb relationship with the press.
Hegseth, the previous Fox Information Channel persona, issued his order by way of a posting on X late on a Friday afternoon earlier than a vacation weekend. He stated it was obligatory for nationwide safety.
“Whereas the division stays dedicated to transparency, the division is equally obligated to guard (categorised intelligence info) and delicate info, the unauthorized disclosure of which might put the lives of U.S. service members in peril,” wrote Hegseth.
The Pentagon Press Affiliation expressed skepticism that operational issues have been at play — and linked the transfer to earlier actions by Hegseth’s workplace that impede journalists and their protection.
“There isn’t any strategy to sugarcoat it. Immediately’s memo by Secretary Hegseth seems to be a direct assault on the liberty of the press and America’s proper to know what its army is doing,” it stated in a press release Friday night time. “The Pentagon Press Affiliation is extraordinarily involved by the choice to limit motion of accredited journalists throughout the Pentagon by means of non-secured, unclassified hallways.”
Hegseth additionally stated reporters will probably be required to signal a type to guard delicate info and could be issued a brand new badge that extra clearly identifies them as press. It was not clear whether or not signing the shape could be a situation of continued entry to the constructing.
Two months in the past, the division was embarrassed by a leak to The New York Occasions that billionaire Elon Musk was to get a briefing on the U.S. army’s plans in case a battle broke out with China. That briefing by no means befell, on President Donald Trump’s orders, and Hegseth suspended two Pentagon officers as a part of an investigation into how that information acquired out.
The Pentagon was additionally embarrassed when the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, was inadvertently included in a bunch chat on the Sign messaging app the place Hegseth mentioned plans for upcoming army strikes in Yemen. Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser, Mike Waltz, took accountability for Goldberg being included and was shifted to a different job.
The administration has taken a number of aggressive actions towards the press since Trump took over, together with FCC investigations into ABC, CBS and NBC Information. Restrictions imposed on The Related Press’ entry to sure White Home occasions earlier this yr led to a courtroom battle that’s ongoing.
The White Home has additionally elevated entry for conservative media which are pleasant to the president. Nonetheless, a examine launched earlier this month discovered that Trump had extra frequent exchanges with reporters throughout his first 100 days in workplace than any of his six predecessors.
Hegseth, nonetheless, has been far much less accessible. He has but to talk to the press within the Pentagon briefing room. Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell has held just one Pentagon press briefing since Jan. 20. The Pentagon has taken different steps to make it tougher for reporters, together with taking workplace house away from eight media retailers, together with The New York Occasions, The Washington Put up, CNN and NBC.
