Bill O’Reilly Eviscerates Hegseth and Trump’s Pentagon Press Crackdown: ‘Are You Kidding Me?’
Bill O’Reilly blasted new press restrictions at the Pentagon, using his own background to break down why the policy is the opposite of “freedom of the press.”
On his No Spin News podcast on Friday, O’Reilly joined others in the press in protesting Department of Defense Pete Hegseth’s new rule requiring press outlets to sign an agreement and limiting their reporting freedom. President Donald Trump previously expressed some skepticism about the policy, but threw out his support earlier this week.
“I know on social media, some MAGA people are going, ‘ah, that’s right, Hegseth’s right.’ Let’s make all the press agencies that cover the Pentagon sign a paper that they will not report anything that happens in the Pentagon unless they get permission from Pete Hegsath. Are you kidding me?” O’Reilly said.
The former Fox News reporter then called back to his time as a reporter with ABC in which he covered a story involving the Pentagon.
O’Reilly recalled:
Let me make it real personal. In 1988, I was working for ABC News. And I was given very, very heavyweight assignments. One of them was the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which was a big Pentagon expenditure. Remember, the Pentagon spends almost a trillion dollars a year, discretionary. That means they spend it on whatever they want. Almost a trillion. Bradley Fighting Vehicle, they would spend enormous money on. They were triple billing. There were corrupt people inside the Pentagon triple billing. That means they were paying three times as much to build that vehicle as they should have. I put it on the air. I got the story. It was an award winner. One of the most proud stories I’ve ever done. Didn’t get anybody’s permission to do it. Pentagon hated it. Hated it. Went after me and everything like that.
O’Reilly earned a National Headliner Award for his exposes on the funding of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle.
Fox News, NBC, ABC, CNN, NPR, Associated Press, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and others have all rejected Hegseth’s requirement banning journalists from soliciting or obtaining any information that is not pre-approved by the Pentagon.
O’Reilly argued the massive amount in discretionary funding that the Pentagon has access to requires independent reporting and using sources, something Hegseth’s new restrictions work against.
“I know you have to do independent reporting, particularly when you have a trillion dollars of discretionary spending,” he said. “Hegg says he doesn’t want that. He wants everybody to, ‘nah, you don’t do anything unless I sign off on it.’ No, that’s not freedom of press.”
Watch above via No Spin News.
