Politics
Pentagon imposes new restrictions on media
- Reporters to get approval before releasing information.
- New guidelines restrict reporters’ movement within Pentagon.
- Reporters required to sign an affidavit promising to comply.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has unveiled new restrictions on media covering the US military, requiring them to pledge not to disclose anything not formally authorised for publication and limiting their movements within the Department of War.
The new guidelines, laid out in a lengthy memo distributed to reporters on Friday, require them to sign an affidavit promising to comply — or risk losing their media credentials.
The move is the latest by the administration of President Donald Trump to control media coverage of his policies, and after he suggested that negative stories could be “illegal.”
The Pentagon “remains committed to transparency to promote accountability and public trust,” the memo says.
But it adds: “Information must be approved for public release by an appropriate authori[s]ing official before it is released, even if it is unclassified” — effectively barring material sourced to unnamed officials.
This new restriction would apply to both classified and “controlled unclassified information.”
The memo also details sweeping new restrictions on where Pentagon reporters can actually go without official escorts within the military’s vast headquarters just outside Washington.
“The ‘press’ does not run the Pentagon – the people do,” Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X.
“The press is no longer allowed to roam the halls of a secure facility. Wear a badge and follow the rules — or go home.”
The new rules come months after Hegseth faced stark criticism for revealing timings of US air strikes on Yemen’s Houthis in a Signal group chat that inadvertently included a reporter.
Hegseth — a former Fox News co-host and Army National Guard veteran — was also reported to have shared those details in a separate Signal group chain that included his wife.
A spokesperson for The New York Times — a frequent target of Trump’s ire — called the new rules “yet another step in a concerning pattern of reducing access to what the US military is undertaking at taxpayer expense.”
National Press Club President Mike Balsamo hit out at the new rules and called on the Pentagon to quickly rescind them.
“If the news about our military must first be approved by the government, then the public is no longer getting independent reporting,” Balsamo said in a statement.
“It is getting only what officials want them to see. That should alarm every American.”
US President Donald Trump purchased about $100 million in municipal and corporate bonds from mid-November to late December, his latest disclosures showed, including up to $2 million in Netflix and Warner Bros Discovery bonds just weeks after the companies announced their merger.
Financial disclosures posted on Thursday and Friday showed the majority of Trump’s purchases were municipal bonds from cities, local school districts, utilities and hospitals.
But he also bought bonds from companies including Boeing, Occidental Petroleum and General Motors.
The investments were the latest reported assets added to Trump’s expanding portfolio while he is in office.
It includes holdings in sectors that benefit from his policies, raising questions about conflicts of interest.
For example, Trump said in December that he would have a say in whether Netflix can proceed with its proposed $83 billion acquisition of Warner Bros Discovery, which faces a rival bid from Paramount Skydance.
Any deal to acquire Warner Bros will need regulatory approval.
A White House official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said on Friday that Trump’s stock and bond portfolio is independently managed by third-party financial institutions and neither Trump nor any member of his family has any ability to direct, influence or provide input regarding how the portfolio is invested.
Like many wealthy individuals, Trump regularly buys bonds as part of his investment portfolio.
He previously disclosed at least $82 million in bond purchases from late August to early October.
US President Donald Trump has reiterated his claim of having stopped a war between Pakistan and India, while also saying that Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif thanked him for saving at least 10 million lives.
He made the remarks at the renaming of Southern Boulevard to Donald J Trump Boulevard in Washington on Friday.
“In a year, we made eight peace deals and ended the conflict in Gaza. We have peace in the Middle East…We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting, two nuclear nations…The Pakistani Prime Minister said Donald Trump saved at least 10 million people, and it was amazing,” he said.
The US president further recalled that the Pakistani prime minister’s remarks were an honour for him.
Trump cited his administration’s foreign policy record and repeated assertions of brokering peace between the two nuclear-armed neighbours.
Trump has made similar claims multiple times since May 10 last year, arguing that US pressure helped defuse tensions between India and Pakistan.
Saudi Arabia’s 90-year-old King Salman was discharged from hospital after undergoing medical tests in the capital Riyadh, the kingdom’s Royal Court said on Friday, adding that the results were “reassuring”.
The monarch “left the King Faisal Specialist Hospital in Riyadh today (Friday) after undergoing medical tests that proved reassuring”, the royal court said in a statement shared on state media, having announced his admission earlier in the day.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest crude oil exporter, has for years sought to quell speculation over King Salman’s health.
He has been on the throne since 2015, though his son Mohammed bin Salman was named crown prince in 2017 and acts as de facto ruler.
The monarch’s well-being is rarely discussed, but he has been admitted for surgery and tests on multiple occasions in recent years.
In 2024, the Royal Court said he suffered from lung infections, which he recovered from.
He was hospitalised in May 2022, when he went in for a colonoscopy and stayed for just over a week for other tests and “some time to rest”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported at the time.
He was also admitted to hospital in March 2022 to undergo what state media described as “successful medical tests” and to change the battery of his pacemaker.
In 2020, he underwent surgery to remove his gall bladder.
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