Judge Cites Hegseth’s Own Words as He Blocks Pentagon’s Media Limits

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s complaints about media coverage came back to bite him Tuesday.

A federal judge ordered a preliminary injunction against the Defense Department’s restrictions on press access to the Pentagon, based in part on “a consistent stream of derisive comments beginning shortly after the confirmation of Secretary Hegseth and continuing through the present.”

U.S. District Judge Paul Friedman temporarily blocked a rule stating that all journalists visiting the Pentagon were required to have an official escort while a lawsuit The New York Times filed against the rule is reviewed in full by the court.

“This court has spoken at several points about the critical importance of protecting the freedoms enshrined in the First Amendment, and that evergreen message bears repeating,” Friedman wrote.

Hegseth has criticized media outlets whose coverage has not reflected well on himself or the department. The judge quoted Hegseth’s March attack on the Times, where he accused the paper of “slashing and burning people to ruin their reputations.”

Friedman quoted Hegseth’s complaints about the “legacy Trump-hating press” peddling “endless stream of garbage,” as well as the time he compared reporters to the biblical “Pharisees” who “held counsel against [Jesus]” and “scrutinized every good act in order to find a violation, only looking for the negative.”

The judge also made sure to include several quotes from Sean Parnell, the assistant to the secretary of defense for public affairs, including when he called the Times “garbage.”

In October, the Department of Defense said that it would revoke the press passes of journalists who shared classified or unclassified information without the Pentagon’s preapproval. The Times sued, and Friedman ruled in the newspaper’s favor in March, after which the DOD issued a revised policy with the escort rule. In May, the Times sued again over the new rule, which prevented journalists from free movement around the building in authorized spaces without an escort.

The DOD has argued that reporters have gained sensitive information based on roaming around Pentagon headquarters, alleging that they “maintain a persistent physical presence near sensitive spaces within the Pentagon.” It has also granted press credentials to friendly right-wing media outlets and influencers at the expense of critical outlets. On Tuesday, though, Hegseth and the rest of the department had to face the consequences of their own words and actions.

A procedural vote on the National Defense Authorization Act failed to pass the House Tuesday, in no small part because the SAVE America Act was attached to it.

The lower chamber voted 198–224 to reject the rule, with 14 Republicans joining Democrats to oppose the last-minute addition of Donald Trump’s voter restriction bill to the proposed Pentagon budget.

Representatives Tim Burchett, Eric Burlison, Eli Crane, Randy Fine, Andy Harris, Anna Paulina Luna, Max Miller, Chip Roy, Keith Self, Victoria Spartz, Mike Turner, Thomas Massie, and Lauren Boebert all voted “no.” House Majority Leader Steve Scalise switched his vote, as well, but only so that Republicans could readdress the matter in future.

The stalled NDAA vote is a major blow to leaders of both parties, who have historically passed the defense spending package with minimal partisan objections. But the wide rejection also illustrates the low level of support behind the SAVE America Act, despite repeated insistence from the White House that it needs to be turned into law.

Since Trump lost the 2020 election, he and his allies have amped up their base over contrived claims of voter fraud, a statistical nonissue in U.S. elections. Trump has worked overtime to force his unpopular election reform proposals through the legislature, throwing confirmation hearings and bipartisan bill signings to the wayside while demanding Republicans prioritize passing the SAVE America Act.

The backlash to the bill—which was introduced months ago—has been grave, so much so that it gummed up efforts to fund Homeland Security for several months. Republicans eventually had to bail on the package to end the congressional gridlock.

Trump has nonetheless opted to make it a legislative priority once again, effectively paralyzing the House for another week. House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Tuesday that the lower chamber would work on the matter for another day and a half and try to hold another vote by the end of the week.

An anonymous victim of Jeffrey Epstein who has accused President Trump of sexually assaulting her is reportedly living in fear of retaliation.

The Guardian reports that the woman identified in the federal government’s Epstein files as “Jane Doe 4” is “living off the grid” and fears retaliation from the Trump administration, according to one of her relatives.

“Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys. She’s coping as best she can,” the relative told the publication, saying the woman had been abused since early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”

Jane Doe 4 spoke to the FBI in 2019, telling agents she was abused by Epstein in the 1980s and sexually assaulted by Trump when she was between 13 and 15 years old on Hilton Head Island in South Carolina. In March, South Carolina’s Post and Courier confirmed certain details of the woman’s life outlined in the Epstein files. None of these details were related to her allegations against Trump.

There’s no evidence the FBI followed up after the woman made the allegations. One of her attorneys, who accompanied her in two of her FBI interviews, said he never received follow-up calls from the agents nor got copies of their reports, which normally are given to defense counsel. In her final FBI interview, the woman cut off contact with the bureau, telling agents that she believed she was being followed.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Post and Courier the woman’s allegations were “baseless accusations from decades ago’’ that “are backed by zero evidence or facts,” describing her as “a sadly disturbed woman who has an extensive criminal history.”

The woman’s account is one of the few from the Epstein files that accuse Trump directly, and the Justice Department has been criticized for its handling of her case files. Last week, a federal judge ordered the Justice Department to comply with the Epstein Files Transparency Act and either release any unreleased Epstein files—including interview notes on Jane Doe 4—or explain why it can’t do so.

There are about 2.5 million unreleased government files on Epstein, which were either classified as “duplicative” or remain legally protected by the DOJ for unknown reasons.

“It should not be Jane Doe 4’s responsibility to keep coming forward,” Sky Roberts, the brother of Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, told The Guardian. “She’s already given her testimony to the FBI. It should be Justice’s responsibility to take that evidence and press forward.”

President Donald Trump’s “Great American State Fair” just gets weirder and weirder.

The Daily Wire’s Michael Knowles stopped by the fair Monday to play the “Yes or No Game,” the conservative commentator’s weirdly political alternative to Cards Against Humanity.

A video appeared to show Knowles onstage lecturing a young girl about the Salem witch trials—and revealing his own outrageous opinions.

“The one area where the Salem witch trials went a little far is, I would say, they weren’t organized enough,” Knowles said. “So, you had these, like, random judges who were, you know, kind of, burning these ladies.

“I don’t know if they were guilty or not,” he continued. “But I think more—if it were more formalized, built up a little bit more, maybe with like a grand inquisitor or something, that would’ve been the way to do it.”

What’s worse: that Knowles thinks the problem with the Salem witch trials was that they were too disorganized, or that he can’t say whether the women were actually guilty of witchcraft? Actually, never mind. The second one is definitely worse.

It appears that since several high-profile musical artists backed out of the fair, the brains behind the festivities have struggled to come up with alternative programming—and the visibly low attendance clearly reflects that.

So far, Trump’s state fair has been supremely underwhelminga: beset by bad reviews, technical difficulties, and disappointing weather delays.

The MAGA world raged Tuesday at Trump-appointed Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett for voting to uphold birthright citizenship.

The Supreme Court’s ruling left right-wing pundits predictably fuming, as Donald Trump has made it perfectly clear that he believes the high court’s conservative justices—especially the ones he saw appointed to the bench—owe their fealty to him over the law.

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh called Barrett the worst thing he could possibly think of: a woman.

“It turns out that Amy Coney Barrett is a DEI hire, little better than Kentanji Jackson. Terrible pick,” Walsh wrote on X Tuesday. “When’s the last time we had a Republican president who didn’t put a liberal justice on the court?”

“The worst Supreme Court Justices of all time have all been women. That’s just a fact. Republican presidents should take the hint,” Walsh wrote in a separate post, including an image of the high court’s four female justices.

But Walsh had originally celebrated Barrett’s nomination in 2020, calling the jurist’s selection a “bullet proof choice.” Ouch.

Conservatives had previously raged against Barrett last year after she joined the court’s liberal justices in dissenting against a decision granting Trump emergency relief to use the “Alien Enemies Act” to deport immigrants at whim. The fervor was reignited Monday after Barrett sided with the liberal justices to reject the Trump administration’s plan to gut mail-in voting.

Speaking on her radio show Monday night, Megyn Kelly fumed that Barrett had become a “turncoat,” because she was “constantly siding with the left.”

Before the Supreme Court had even delivered its opinion on birthright citizenship, Joey Mannarino, a far-right internet personality, wrote on X: “If Amy Coney Barrett really votes against ending birthright citizenship, we should begin to look into how to deport her Haitian child back to Haiti.”