The Trump administration announced Wednesday that a group of far-right media outlets have been given press access to the Pentagon.
The announcement comes a week after actual journalists staged a walkout and refused to sign on to new rules that require all reporting to be pre-approved by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Even Fox News stood against the new rules.
“New media outlets and independent journalists have created the formula to circumvent the lies of the mainstream media and get real news directly to the American people,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell wrote on X. “Their reach and impact collectively are far more effective and balanced than the self-righteous media who chose to self-deport from the Pentagon.”
Among the Pentagon’s new pool of outlets is Timcast, conspiratorial racist Tim Pool’s podcast, on which he has claimed that “multiculturalism” is behind mass shootings and that women should face public shame for how many sexual partners they’ve had.
Pool has been given Pentagon access even though—or perhaps because—he was among a group of right-wing influencers paid by the Russian government to spread disinformation. He received payments from the Russian Tenet Media to make politically divisive videos to weaken the U.S. government and its opposition to Russia.
Russia likely had no idea that, with Donald Trump becoming president, one of its paid stooges would be given a front-row seat to the inner workings of the U.S. military.
Similarly, MyPillow founder and election conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell’s outlet, LindellTV, will now regurgitate Hegseth’s nonsense to the public. Lindell was among the Trump sycophants who have falsely insisted that Trump won the 2020 election.
Gateway Pundit, the conservative blog founded and operated by Jim Hoft, also received Pentagon credentials. Hoft, once described by the media watchdog group Media Matters for America as the “dumbest man on the internet,” has spent decades promoting debunked right-wing conspiracy theories and other falsehoods.
More recently, Gateway Pundit paid out a settlement in a 2024 defamation lawsuit brought by two Georgia election workers after it falsely accused them of rigging the 2020 election results.
Pentagon reporting is of dire importance at the moment.
The Trump administration is engaged in warfare in South America, which some experts say is illegal. Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin has ignored Trump’s halfhearted attempt to end Russia’s war on Ukraine, which has most recently included the bombing of a kindergarten with children present. And in the Middle East, Israel’s conflict with Hamas has continued despite Trump’s claims that he secured a “peace deal.”
The Pentagon’s new right-wing press corps is beyond ill-equipped to handle independent reporting. But when it comes to producing stories that get Hegseth’s approval, it’ll pass with flying colors.
