For the second day in a row, MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” addressed the Pentagon’s new press policy, calling it both “deeply worrisome” and “incredibly stupid.”
The policy demands that reporters agree not to engage in “solicitation” with military officials in the Pentagon or publish any information that has not been officially authorized for public release. Nearly every major news network has rejected the policy over fears that it could criminalize traditional newsgathering and reporting. Most Pentagon journalists, consequently, handed in their press credentials and walked out of the building Wednesday.
“This is the Pentagon trying to drive home its talking points, trying to spoon-feed information to reporters, saying, ‘You can only report on what we tell you to do.’ No reporter, of course, is going to abide by that,” “Morning Joe” co-host Jonathan Lemire explained Thursday. Lemire then turned his attention to Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, calling the Trump administration official “thin-skinned.”
“He is afraid of being embarrassed in front of the President of the United States,” Lemire observed, adding. “He is someone who still is thought of well by the president but very few others in the White House, I am told.”
“He’s being very protective of his image and reputation,” Lemire said of Hegseth. “But this is a dangerous escalation, trying to curtail press freedoms. The president has mused about doing something similar at the White House. Perhaps Capitol Hill will be next. It is deeply worrisome, and another example of this administration trying to deliver an assault against the Freedom of the Press, Freedom of Speech.”
You can watch the full “Morning Joe” segment yourself in the video below.
To date, only One America News Network has publicly stated that it signed the Pentagon’s policy. For his part, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough slammed the policy as an “incredibly stupid” move on Hegseth’s part and reflected on the time he spent serving as a Florida congressman from 1995 to 2001.
“I was on a plane one time with [former Republican Senator] Alan Simpson, and he was like, ‘Hey, boy! You new here?’ and I go, ‘Yes, sir, I am. You have any advice?’” Scarborough recalled. “[Simpson] goes, ‘Yeah, when somebody in the media calls you, son, even if they’re sons of bitches, you call them back that day.’ And I took it to heart.”
“It makes such a huge difference, and so Pete Hegseth now is further isolating himself,” Scarborough noted. “The person hurt the most by this is, fill in the blank, Pete Hegseth.” Baffled, the “Morning Joe” host concluded, “You look at the Pentagon and you’re actually pushing out all of these reporters? It’s the worst thing to do, the worst thing to do, unless you are so incompetent and inept you don’t want people to catch you.”
