During Tuesday’s first press briefing with a new Pentagon press corps, one reporter asked whether the “Department of War” was planning to “pursue legal action against the Washington Post” for its story detailing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in a missile strike against alleged drug traffickers, and following up with: “What consequences will there be for lying to the American people?”
“It is frankly disgusting that the Washington Post would publish something that is so insanely false. And we’ve seen this from the mainstream media before,” responded Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson, who added, “It is disgraceful that they call themselves journalists”
This is a glimpse into the new Pentagon press briefing, where the person at the podium and those posing the questions share a low opinion of the traditional news media. After dozens of news outlets, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Fox News and CNN, rejected press restrictions in October out of fears they could constrain, and potentially criminalize, journalism, the Pentagon invited conservative reporters and influencers to fill their spots, with right-wing media stars such as Laura Loomer, James O’Keefe, Jack Posobiec and Matt Gaetz all in attendance Tuesday.
But even as the Defense Secretary gets a more sympathetic press corps inside the Pentagon, the past several days have proven that he can’t dictate the news cycle. While the fresh Pentagon press corps gets acquainted with its new digs, reporters from traditional outlets continue to aggressively cover the military from the outside, driving a story about a deadly boat strike that’s spiraling out of Hegseth’s control.
Contrast that with the scene on Monday, when newly minted press badge-holders posted pics inside the Pentagon, with several — Loomer, influencer Cam Higby and RC Maxwell — each boasting about occupying a desk formerly used by the Washington Post. “Out with the propagandists and hacks,” wrote Maxwell, a RedState correspondent, while Higby, later acknowledging he might have nabbed a Bloomberg desk, thanked the traditional press corps for “self deporting from the Pentagon.”
Such social media promotion invited some mockery, with former Obama adviser and “Pod Save America” co-host Tommy Vietor writing: “It’s hilarious how all these MAGA influencers are posting photos from the Pentagon press briefing room like doing Pentagon propaganda is some sort of flex. Hey enjoy the cubicle and having Pete Hegseth shove lies down your throat like you’re a little baby bird!!!”
Kicking off Tuesday’s briefing, Wilson welcomed the new attendees while rattling off stats about declining public trust in the media and vowed not to “beg these old gatekeepers to come back.” She accused the legacy media of choosing “to self-deport” and dismissed its reporters as “propagandists.”
It was a surreal scene made even more awkward given the grave headlines flying around that morning.
The Washington Post reported exclusively on Friday that Adm. Frank “Mitch” Bradley ordered a second strike to kill survivors of a U.S. missile attack on alleged drug traffickers off the Trinidad coast, actions done to comply with Hegseth’s directive to leave no one alive. The explosive piece — “Hegseth order on first Caribbean boat strike, officials say: Kill them all” — quickly ignited a political firestorm and has prompted accusations of war crimes.
The Pentagon initially dismissed the “entire narrative” as “completely false.” But on Monday, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged that Hegseth had authorized Bradley’s actions on Sept. 2, which “worked well within his authority and the law.”
At Tuesday’s briefing, Wilson said that “at the end of the day, the Secretary and the President are the ones directing these strikes and any follow-on strikes like those directed by Admiral Bradley, the Secretary 100% agrees with.”
Across the Potomac River, during a televised cabinet meeting at the White House, Trump and Hegseth faced questions about the fatal strike — this time from traditional news outlets. Trump seemed to try distancing himself from the final call, saying he “still hasn’t gotten a lot of information because I rely on Pete” and “didn’t know about the second strike.” Hegseth, who has previously mentioned watching the attack live, said he “did not personally see survivors,” adding: “This is called the fog of war. This is what you and the press don’t understand.”
The Post’s report has already sparked bipartisan calls for Congressional hearings and raises more questions about the Trump administration’s lethal attacks on alleged drug-trafficking vessels in the Caribbean, all as the U.S. ramps up pressure on Venezuela’s government.
While journalists spoke to TheWrap in October about the advantages of working inside the Pentagon for day-to-day coverage, they acknowledged that much of the most consequential reporting isn’t carried out while passing through the hallways, but is the result of deep sourcing.
“Time and again, reporters have proven they can continue to cover the news and break scoops from wherever they work,” former CNN Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr told TheWrap on Tuesday.
Starr, a Senior Fellow at USC’s Center on Communication Leadership and Policy, said that while some new press corps members asked “red-meat questions,” she found that many “asked very on-the-news, pointed, good questions.” And yet, in Starr’s view, Wilson failed to answer questions in depth and delivered “message points about how terrible the news media is.”
Indeed, questions on geopolitical matters, from Venezuela to Iran to Somalia, wouldn’t have been out of place at a typical briefing, while other queries reflected the more partisan make-up of the new press corps. But even if it wasn’t a typical group of Pentagon reporters in attendance, the structure of the 27-minute briefing was still largely conventional.
“Hegseth wanted to change it all up,” Starr said. “All he’s done is recreate the old way of doing business with different people sitting in the chairs, while the majority of seasoned, experienced journalists who cover the Pentagon, and have for years, have already moved on and are breaking scoop after scoop and finding new ways of doing business.”
Still, one Pentagon correspondent, Tara Copp of the Post, said she “would have gladly been in that room to ask questions in person,” but Hegseth’s team denied her request, stating it “was an ‘orientation’ limited to the new media who’d signed the restrictive new policies.”
It should be noted that Wilson, at one point, took a break from wholesale mainstream media-bashing to applaud, of all outlets, the New York Times.
The Times reported Monday that while Hegseth “ordered a strike that would kill the people on the boat and destroy the vessel and its purported cargo of drugs,” he “did not specifically address what should happen if a first missile turned out not to fully accomplish all of those things.” The Times cited five officials, speaking under the condition of anonymity, while the Post said its report was based on “interviews with and accounts from seven people with knowledge of the Sept. 2 strike and the overall operation.”
“Thankfully, the New York Times stepped in correcting the record and let the American people know what they were publishing was absolutely fake news,” said Wilson, and the Washington Post’s “readership should think twice before reading that outlet again.” (The Post did not respond to a request for comment.)
It seems mainstream news outlets are apparently still good for something inside the new Pentagon briefing, even if it’s to bludgeon a competitor.
