Pete Hegseth’s ‘Next Step Is to Ban Reporters Entirely’ From the Pentagon, Warns Veteran Correspondent
CBS Chief Washington Correspondent Major Garrett sat down with veteran CBS Pentagon reporter David Martin this week to discuss to strict limits Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has put on reporters at the Pentagon.
Garrett began the discussion on his show, The Takeout, by asking Martin, “What are the changes, and why does it matter to the ability of a day-to-day Pentagon correspondent to do his or her job?”
“So I’m off the daily beat, but I was over there this afternoon, and it’s night and day. The rules are now that a reporter can only leave his booth or desk to go visit one of the public affairs officers for the various armed services and departments, and he has to be escorted in order to do that,” Martin replied, adding:
There’s an exception for potty breaks, and you get to go to one food court. But basically, reporters are no longer able to roam the hallways. And I think most secretaries of defense when they arrive at the Pentagon are surprised by how open that building is, or was. Reporters were free to roam the halls. That doesn’t give you unfettered access. The classified information is in locations that are behind these vault-like doors that require special passes to get through. But it’s like a cop walking the beat. How do you get to know your neighborhood? You walk the beat, and that’s what I did for 40 years. I mean, it’s not very glamorous. But you just get to know the place and the people.
Garrett followed up, “And in that process of walking the beat, you run into, you see, you encounter sources and information that might differ or illuminate the official word that comes from the Pentagon or the various branches?”
Martin replied, “Well, that’s the aim. Certainly, you want to pierce the public facade that any institution presents, and you want to find out what’s really going on. For me, that meant walking around the building. I’m sure I hold the world record for the number of miles walked in the Pentagon. And if this restriction stands… That record will be retired.”
Garrett added, “And it’s my impression, David, also, that there is a dramatic reduction in briefings, and there were almost no briefings. Maybe there might have been one, but maybe not even one, when there was a day-to-day kinetic operation by the U.S. Military with Houthis in Yemen.”
“That’s right. There’s no venue in which to sort of routinely question Pentagon officials. I mean, it’s—this is not just a war on leaks. Every administration—” Martin said as Garrett added, “Carries it out to one level or another.”
“This, at least from my perspective, is making the Pentagon as difficult to cover as possible. And the next step is to ban reporters entirely from the Pentagon, and that’s why the reporters I’ve talked to that are still on the beat, they’re not going to try and find workarounds to this policy, because they don’t want to trigger the next sanction,” Martin warned ominously.
“Meaning, if they’re afraid that if they push back on this very strong limitation on their previous full access to the building, they might be kicked out, evicted from the entire building, and they don’t want to risk that,” Garrett noted, a bit stunned.
Martin concluded, “As part of this new regime, reporters are going to be issued different press passes, which are going to be much more identifiable as press passes. Right now, if I were walking around with my building pass on, you wouldn’t know whether I was a reporter or not. But now they’re going to put the scarlet ‘P’ someplace on us and make sure everybody knows that person’s a reporter.”
Watch the clip above via CBS News.
