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Predicament at the Pentagon

News organizations face a looming deadline from Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, which is demanding they sign restrictive new rules, or risk being expelled from the building entirely.

Oliver Darcy
Oliver Darcy

Sep 26, 2025

Predicament at the Pentagon

News organizations face a looming deadline from Pete Hegseth’s Pentagon, which is demanding they sign restrictive new rules, or risk being expelled from the building entirely.

Oliver Darcy
Oliver Darcy

Sep 26, 2025

U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. (Photo by Brendan Smilowski/AFP via Getty Images)

Inside the halls of the Pentagon, reporters are wondering: Will this be their last week reporting from the building? Last Friday, the Pete Hegseth–led Department of Defense notified members of the press corps that they will be required to sign a new agreement if they wish to maintain access. The document contains a series of sweeping new restrictions, most notably a clause that would bar reporters from publishing any information without explicit government approval.

The Pentagon’s chief spokesperson, Sean Parnell, delivered the new rules to news organizations with a firm deadline: September 30, or next Tuesday. If newsrooms don’t agree to the policy, their access to the building will seemingly be revoked. So far, the pushback has been universal. I’m told that…

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The NBC News logo seen at 30 Rock. (GHI-Plexi Images/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Status Scoop | Tremors at 30 Rock: The divorce at 30 Rock is starting to take its toll on employees. I’m told that as NBC News cleaves off MSNBC and CNBC, some staffers who worked in positions that provided support to each of the networks are getting the pink slip. Last week, layoffs hit the…

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Authors

Oliver Darcy

Jon Passantino

Natalie Korach

Brian Lowry

Status is the definitive nightly briefing that cuts through the noise to inform readers about what is really happening in the corridors of media power.

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