PRESSING MATTERS: Dozens of members of the Pentagon press corps turned in their access badges yesterday and left the building after refusing to agree to new rules that would limit their reporting to officially released information while imposing restrictions on their movements in and around the Pentagon. 

  The one-page document of rights and privileges reporters previously signed to get a press pass was replaced with 21 pages of legalese and threats about gathering classified information, endangering national security, and even taking drugs.

  President Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth don’t like dealing with reporters they can’t control. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Tuesday, Trump backed up Hegseth saying, “I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace. The press is very dishonest.”

   In World War II Gen. Dwight Eisenhower believed that a free press and honest reporting to the public was part of what America was fighting for. Reporters were free to roam the front and take their risks. The military began to turn against the press during Vietnam because reporters revealed that it was a futile and corruptly fought war.

  In the years following, the Middle East wars in particular, the Pentagon has required reporters to be escorted by “information” officers, hampering free coverage.

  Hegseth has been fighting leaks coming out of the military, even forcing people to submit to lie detector tests. Leaks in any organization tend to increase when people are unhappy with their leadership. The defense press will continue covering their beat from outside the building and will be more dependent than ever on unofficial sources.

SOUTHERN STRATEGY: President Trump confirmed last night that he authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela because the authoritarian regime has emptied its prisons into the US, something for which he has offered no proof. Trump said the US controls the seas around Venezuela and is considering strikes inside the country.

  Trump is moving toward unseating the dictator Nicolás Maduro.

THE REGIME:

— President Trump signed a memo directing Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to re-direct money to pay the armed forces during the government shutdown despite Congress having sole constitutional power to determine spending. Trump’s memo says Hegseth should use “any funds appropriated by the Congress that remain available for expenditure in fiscal year 2026 to accomplish the scheduled disbursement of military pay.”

— Former special prosecutor Jack Smith, who presided over two federal indictments of Donald Trump, has begun to speak up about the dismantling and politicization of the Justice Department. 

  In a lecture at George Mason University Smith said, “What I see happening at the Department of Justice today saddens me and angers me — selfless public servants fired for doing their job, the government using the vast powers of the criminal justice system to target citizens for exercising their constitutional rights.”

  Smith told a student audience; “As an international prosecutor, I have seen in other countries the rule of law erode, and I have seen how quickly that can happen. One of my concerns is that we have had the rule of law function in this country for so long that many of us have come to take it for granted.”

— Brown University followed MIT in rejecting the White House proposal to steer public money toward schools that align themselves with President Trump’s ideological priorities. 

  Brown and eight other universities were asked to sign a “compact” in which they would agree to place limits on the number of international students while “abolishing institutional units that purposefully punish, belittle and even spark violence against conservative ideas,” and establishing policies “that academic freedom is not absolute.” 

  The document also says that universities are free to do whatever they want  if they choose to “forego federal benefits.”

  Brown President Christina Paxson told Trump administration officials in a letter that, “I am concerned that the compact by its nature and by various provisions would restrict academic freedom and undermine the autonomy of Brown’s governance, critically compromising our ability to fulfill our mission.” 

— President Trump hosted dozens of rich donors for a dinner last night in exchange for what he called the “tremendous amounts of money” they agreed to give for building a $200 million ballroom addition to the White House. “They wanted to have a ballroom, and it never happened because they didn’t have a real estate person,” Trump said.

IT’S POLITICAL: In a sign of rebellion among younger Democrats. Massachusetts Democratic Rep. Seth Moulton announced that he’s a candidate to unseat long-term incumbent Ed Markey, who will be 80 when he runs for reelection next year to a six-year term. “I just don’t think we can wait six years for new leadership in our party,” Moulton said.

  Former congressman Joe Kennedy made that same argument in 2020 and lost to Markey, who’s held public office for 52 years, 49 of them in Congress. The old guard is hard to push out.

  “Senator Markey and I agree on a lot of the issues,” Moulton said, although, “He’s been in elected office for half a century. That’s longer than I’ve been alive.”

THE SPIN RACK:  Hamas militants in Gaza say they have returned all the bodies of dead hostages they’ve been able to recover, putting the ceasefire and peace deal with Israel at risk. Hamas said they need “special equipment” to find and recover any more bodies of captives. — California Gov. Gavin Newsom vetoed a bill that would have granted benefits to state residents who are the descendants of slaves. The law would have given descendants such things as preference in college admissions, home loan assistance, and restitution for property seized by the government through eminent domain.

BELOW THE FOLD: Former New York magazine reporter Olivia Nuzzi is coming out with a book in which she is expected to detail her sexting affair with Robert F. Kennedy Jr, an exposé that could destroy sexting.

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