Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s controversial new media policy — and the claims behind it — may backfire, experts are warning.

Hegseth’s new policy was rejected by nearly every major credentialed news organization — including his former employer, Fox News — some of which said it infringes on their First Amendment rights.

“Press freedom groups decried the Pentagon’s new media restrictions, arguing they appear ‘designed to stifle a free press and potentially expose us to prosecution for simply doing our jobs,’ per the Pentagon Press Association,” Axios reported.

Former Trump National Security Advisor John Bolton noted that the Defense Chief’s “17 pages of new rules for media in the Pentagon are a mistake and upend over 80 years of American norms. The wide range of outlets refusing these rules – from the Washington Post to Newsmax and The Hill – show how indefensible these new rules are.”

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

“It doesn’t seem like the whole story is being told to our viewers here,” declared Fox News senior strategic analyst General Jack Keane (Ret.). The Pentagon, he said, wants to “spoon-feed information to the journalists, and that will be their story. That’s not journalism. Journalism is going out and finding the story and getting all the facts that support it.”

Journalist Barbara Starr, a former CNN Pentagon reporter for two decades, told anchor Kaitlan Collins that she thinks Hegseth is “about to potentially run into a buzz saw of trouble, because reporters are going to continue to report whether they’re inside the building or not.”

Wednesday marks the first full day of Hegseth’s new policy, which almost all Pentagon reporters refused to sign. By doing so, they were forced to hand in their press passes.

Asked if what he was telling President Donald Trump was true — that reporters had unfettered access to almost everywhere in the Pentagon, including classified areas, Starr emphatically responded, “No, absolutely not. And he knows it, and he should be telling the president the truth.”

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests

“What Hegseth is about to lose,” by reporters not being in the building, “I don’t think he even comprehends.”

“He’s about to lose the ability to have communication with millions of Americans who read blogs, read newspapers, tune into TV to get military news, to find out what’s going on, to find out how their tax money’s being spent, what the troops are up to, how military families are doing, how women and minorities are doing in the military,” Starr explained. “He’s going to be have a tough time really communicating.”

She said that “behind the scenes, the big question that’s being whispered about more and more is, ‘What is Hegseth afraid of?’ If he’s afraid of leaks, go after those he believes are leaking. If he’s afraid of not showing the president how tough he is, well, he probably needs to start by telling the truth about what’s really going on with the media and the Pentagon and going from there.”

On Wednesday, The Washington Post’s military affairs reporter Dan Lamothe reported that “Hegseth’s bid to impose sweeping restrictions on journalists at the Pentagon was orchestrated with advice of his legal fixer, Tim Parlatore.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof wrote that it is “utterly disingenuous when Hegseth says that the new Pentagon crackdown is about protecting classified information. It’s about protecting Hegseth.”

“Remember that it was Hegseth himself who sent advance information about a Yemen bombing to his wife, brother and personal lawyer in a Signal chat,” he noted. “That’s just the kind of scandal, involving mishandling of classified information, that reporters should be uncovering and reporting on. But the new Pentagon policy would bar them from inquiring about it. So we have someone with a record of mishandling secret information taking steps to protect himself politically and saying that it’s to protect national secrets? Really?! I’m rolling my eyes.”

Barbara Starr, longtime CNN correspondent and stalwart of the Pentagon press corps, on Secretary Hegseth’s changes to press policy: “I think he’s about to potentially run into a buzz saw of trouble, because reporters are going to continue to report whether they’re inside the… pic.twitter.com/uVzqE9CpFX

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) October 15, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Dissent Becomes Evil’: Eric Trump’s Claim Father Is Guided by God Slammed by Experts

Image via Reuters

Eric Trump’s controversial remarks — declaring that his father is guided by God and praising what he describes as a divinely orchestrated series of events leading America to this moment — are being blasted by a group of hundreds of national security experts.

“I can’t tell you how many things are lining up,” the President’s son told right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson.

“I mean, think about the fact that this book came out on Charlie Kirk’s birthday, on the same day as we have peace in the Middle East,” he said, of his new book. “You know, I mean, so many different factors are all coming together at once in the most unthinkable, unbelievable journey.”

“Look how much better humanity and our world is,” under Trump, he claimed.

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests

“You know, we’re saving Christianity. We’re saving God, we’re saving the family unit. We’re saving this nation. I mean, you know, DEI is out the window, Benny. You know, I mean, you no longer have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem,” Trump continued. “You no longer have Budweiser going, woke as h–, all of this is dead.”

Trump claimed a resurgence in church attendance, and “a return to people, you know, valuing their children, and valuing society, and believing in the white picket fence, and what the American dream represents, and what the American dream stands for, and American exceptionalism, and peace around the world, and that people can coexist with one another without having to, you know, pick up arms and destroy each other for no reason whatsoever, other than, you know, incompetent, and, you know, and egotistical governments.”

“It’s a beautiful time, and he will go to heaven for all of that,’ he said of his father. “God absolutely guided this journey.”

The Steady State, a group of over 330 former national security officials, slammed the Trump scion’s remarks.

“Eric Trump is not talking politics,” they wrote. “Instead, he’s declaring a new moral order.”

READ MORE: ‘Pure Fascist’: Governor Blasted for Backing ‘Forever’ Federal Joint Policing Operation

“Framing Trump as God-guided and destined for heaven, he claims America has been ‘saved’ from DEI, protest, and pluralism. This is prophetic, authoritarian language,” they warned.

“Dissent becomes evil, and their victory becomes divine destiny.”

Former Obama head speechwriter turned political commentator Jon Favreau remarked, “We’ve moved rather quickly from ‘God saved Trump’ to ‘Trump is saving God,’ which I guess is the foundation of the new MAGA religion?”

Author Jennifer Erin Valent, winner of a Christian writers’ award commented, “No one ‘saves’ God. Every Christian should know that and be repulsed by the very assertion.”

Eric Trump: “We’re saving Christianity. We’ve saving God. We’ve saving the family unit. We’re saving this nation. I mean, DEI is out of the window, Benny. You no longer have Colin Kaepernick kneeling for the national anthem. You no longer have Budweiser going woke as hell. All of… pic.twitter.com/OFEcxmLhmc

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 14, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

Image via Reuters

Following the launch of a massive federal interagency task force in partnership with state law enforcement, Tennessee Republican Governor Bill Lee pledged that the “Memphis Safe Task Force” would be a permanent fixture.

Last month, the White House published a presidential memorandum titled “Restoring Law and Order in Memphis,” which orders thirteen federal government agencies and offices to coordinate. It states the “objective shall be to end street and violent crime in Memphis to the greatest possible extent,” and lists actions including “hypervigilant policing, aggressive prosecution, complex investigations, financial enforcement, and large-scale saturation of besieged neighborhoods with law enforcement personnel.”

Memphis is among the most violent cities in the country.

READ MORE: ‘Batten Down the Hatches’: White House Issues New Shutdown Threat

“The Memphis Safe Task Force began operations on September 29, with the National Guard joining efforts this past Friday,” Action5 News reported on Monday.

Governor Lee told reporters on Tuesday, “we’ve just begun,” and said the program will last “for months,” before stating that in some form it will continue “forever.”

“We do know that this is gonna last for months, and we have just begun. In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever,” he said. “Because what we believe will happen is the numbers of law enforcement agents from different agencies will change, depending on the mission at the moment.”

He described a “collaboration that is happening right now between U.S. Marshal Service and the Memphis Police Department, and the FBI, and the DEA, and the Tennessee Highway Patrol.”

READ MORE: ‘Do Not Love This Country’: GOP Escalates Attacks on ‘No Kings’ Movement

“That collaboration will be here from now on,” said Lee. “So this operation, in some ways, may never end.”

Critics blasted the governor.

“As I predicted,” noted authoritarianism expert Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the “aim is a ‘domestic forever war.'”

The Atlantic’s Dr. Norman Ornstein, a political scientist, wrote: “Fascist. Pure fascist.”

Columnist and “recovering attorney” Wajahat Ali added, “Forever occupation, eh?”

Gov. Bill Lee says the Trump-Lee military-police occupation of Memphis “may never end.”

“We have just begun. We do know this is going to last for months… In fact, I will tell you that it will last forever.” pic.twitter.com/y9k2Gi6peD

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) October 14, 2025

READ MORE: ‘Seem Very Nervous’: Top Trump Officials Blasted After Lashing Out at ‘No Kings’ Protests