Democrats ‘Plant a Flag’ Against Hegseth’s Media Restrictions

A bill to restore reporter access to the Pentagon sets an early marker for the party’s oversight agenda.

Pete Hegseth

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has required journalists to be escorted through much of the building, relocated major news organizations from their longtime office space and imposed new credentialing rules. Mark Schiefelbein/AP Photo

A group of 14 Senate Democrats is set to introduce a bill Thursday to reverse Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s restrictions on media access inside the Pentagon, arguing the administration is denying the public vital information about the Iran war.

Led by Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), the bill would restore reporters’ access to areas of the Pentagon that credentialed journalists could enter before the Trump administration’s 2025 restrictions, including the “Correspondent’s Corridor,” a workspace for journalists since 1972. The bill hasn’t previously been reported.

“Well, it’s a free country, and they’re not acting like it,” Schatz told NOTUS. “Especially in a time of war … a vigorous and adversarial press gets to question why we’re at war, what the theory of victory is, how much it’s going to cost, what our strategy is — and none of that has been explained to the public.”