Journalists at the Pentagon said on Tuesday that they were warned, minutes before embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth took the podium for a press briefing, that anyone who “gets out of line” would be “removed physically.” According to reporters’ online posts, the threat was framed so vaguely that even the official delivering it appeared embarrassed by the situation.

“At Pete Hegseth’s briefing this morning, an official came out to tell reporters that if anyone ‘gets out of line’ they will be ‘removed physically,’” Vanity Fair Washington correspondent Aiden McLaughlin posted on X. “Reporters shouted back ‘what does that mean?’ Official said it meant to maintain ‘decorum’ and added he was just relaying orders.” McLaughlin added that a Defense Department press aide then sought to explain the instructions out of the record: “A few minutes later, DOD press aide Joel Valdez walked out and said he would explain the orders off the record. Reporters asked for it to be on background. Valdez looked down at the floor and then walked out of the room without saying anything.” Under standard news-industry ground rules, “off the record” information cannot be published or attributed at all, while “on background” material may be reported with only generic attribution — such as “a Defense Department official” — rather than a named source.

Washington Post reporter Tara Copp corroborated the account on X, writing: “A security agent for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth just warned the reporters here — for Hegseth’s first press conference in 6 months — that we will be physically removed from the briefing room if we are not professional and maintain decorum. We asked if that meant no shouted questions and got no clarity. It’s the first time any of us could ever remember being threatened like this. Shouted questions are normal. ‘This is crazy town’ one journalist said, noting the White House has never threatened reporters like that.”

Reaction to the warning was swift. “An inauspicious start to the first Pentagon press briefing in six months,” CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter noted on X. Journalist Nancy Yousseff joked, “No beardos. No weirdos. No uncomfortable questions?” — a reference to one of Hegseth’s favorite tough-guy taglines. “Nothing says ‘warrior ethos’ like having your flunky threaten to remove reporters from a press conference when they ask you hard questions,” Third Way cofounder Matt Bennett wrote. “This is how fascists operate,” one journalist asserted.

Several observers characterized the episode as another chapter in the Trump administration’s attacks on the freedom of the press guaranteed by the First Amendment, the constitutional provision that bars government actors from infringing speech and press freedoms. The timing drew particular attention from All Rise News Editor-in-Chief Adam Klasfeld, who noted that the threats arrived just as Hegseth was preparing to deliver statements defending himself against allegations that his conduct warranted impeachment — and that allegations of speech suppression are already included in the case against him.

“ARTICLE VI against Pete Hegseth: Suppressing Free Speech,” Klasfeld posted, attaching a screenshot from the articles of impeachment against Hegseth prepared by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) — the formal, numbered charges through which the House can pursue the removal of a sitting federal official. The excerpt read: “In his conduct while Secretary of Defense, Peter Brian Hegseth, in violation of his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and to well and faithfully discharge the duties of his office, abused the powers entrusted to him by retaliating against a Member of Congress for constitutionally protected speech and attempting to subject a member of a coordinate branch of government to Executive Branch punishment for the exercise of his legislative and oversight responsibilities.”

Source: Alternet