9-25-25 - 8am - Pentagon & The Press

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You just know that other guys I hate listener and
probably not a real dragon.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Honestly, you talk a big game because you do all
your workouts and your fit and you really like to
keep in good shape.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
You have no idea what it's.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Like to be someone who is big and struggles with weight,
and it really makes me emotionally.

Speaker 3 (00:26):
You are a bad person. You're too true.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
I have no idea what it's what it's like to
step on a scale that only goes up to three
hundred and fifty pounds and just says error, Yeah, I
have no no idea.

Speaker 3 (00:38):
That's never happened to me before ever.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
Well, saying y'all. Setting all that aside, I'd like to
see the video or a video of him sitting up
there in Alaska and his on his lean to you know,
poor girl, poor little girl shivering in the cold while
he tried, you know, tries to touch his little microphone
on the iHeart app and then tries to fake crying

(01:05):
and fake that. I mean, that was pathetic. That was
really pathetic acting.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
Well, he'd better be careful if he really cries because
it could freeze to his face. I mean, it's cold
up there in Alaska. I mean summer was you know,
two weeks ago for a day for you know, a
few hours.

Speaker 4 (01:20):
Summer was a few hours, a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 3 (01:22):
Yeah, exactly, it's gonna start getting cold.

Speaker 4 (01:26):
Just think about he when when it really gets in fact,
what is this this? Yeah, probably it's getting close to
the time when whether he listens to us live, which
he tends to do, or on the podcast, it's always
going to be in the dark. True, because he you know,
he's got that. I would hope that he would give
the country at least three hours of that daylight that

(01:49):
they have during the winter or less, that he would
give us at least give us some some semblance of
service during that time.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
And then regarding to that first talk back about that
hate listener, if we didn't have hate listeners, we wouldn't
we wouldn't.

Speaker 4 (02:03):
Have twelve listeners. In fact, I think but based on
the last on the last Gallop survey, eight of the
twelve or hate listeners.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So, and I don't know why that that previous talkback
just bugged the crap out of me, because you clearly
must be new here if you're thinking we're actually making
fun of somebody, because we really dislike them or hate
them and make fun of them because they do stupid,
stupid things exactly.

Speaker 4 (02:35):
And the other thing that drives me crazy about those
kinds of talkbacks is I, if that was a true
hate listener, then good you were. You were, you were
good at it. If you were a fake hate listener,
they congratulations because you were good at that also got us. Yeah,
you got either way. I have. I don't know why,

(03:00):
just because it hasn't come up in my pos, but
I found my notes about this new Department of Defense.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
Memo.

Speaker 4 (03:11):
It's a sweeping revision of its policy governing governing media
coverage of the Pentagon. This new protocol represents a real
significant and a controversial Uh. It's a pivot from long
standing access norms within the building itself, and I assume

(03:34):
that it's applicable all across all installations. Has really generated
allegations of a direct conflict with the prior policy, which is,
you know, it's not unusual to change policies, but it
has also prompted a really vigorous debate about its constitutionality
into the First Amendment, particularly regarding prior restraint, which is

(03:57):
if you well, we'll get to the Pentagon pay papers
and prior restraintants the minute. So this new DLD media policy,
it requires all Pentagon credential journalists. Let's just stop there
for a minute. If you are a credential journalist, then

(04:18):
you have a Pentagon pass. So when you if you
if you're if you take the metro to the Pentagon
and you come up the Pentagon escalators, then you would
go through a kind of a furbling line of you know,
a line to get inside. You would show your I

(04:41):
D and your you would show you probably wouldn't show
your ID if you've, if you've been credentialed, but you
would have a press pass which would give you access
to certain areas of the Pentagon, and within those certain
areas you can wander around. You can wander around, you
can go see, you know, the commander in charge of X.

(05:03):
Now you're not going to see that necessarily see the
commander in charge of X, but you may go to
that office suite and the receptionist, the gatekeeper, will you know,
see that you with you know NBC News or ABC
News and you want to find out whether not Jimmy
Kimmel alive is being carried in the in the office.
So you, you know, you walk up to the gatekeeper,

(05:25):
who probably knows who you are already, and you're looking
for any press releases, or you want to talk to
somebody about a policy that you've heard about, or maybe
they've called you and want you to come in, so
that you go to that you go to that suite,
the gatekeeper says, yes, you know, have a seat, so
and so we'll be out to see you in a minute. Now.

(05:46):
There are obviously parts of the Pentagon that are off
limits limited access, so you're not going to get there,
but that the pre existing policy allowed them to roam around.
Free range journalists, so to speak, with limitations. I don't
want to give the impression that they can just wander

(06:07):
into the op center, but they can know they can
wander around, and they can go into the Secretary's suite.
They obviously can't walk into the Secretary's office, but they
can walk into the suite, be greeted by the receptionists
and ask questions and ask to speak to a spokesperson
or someone or the press office. Same thing I'm just

(06:27):
trying to draw a picture of they're free range journalists
with limitations, limitations geographically within the building and then limitations
within a particular office. Now there may be a contract office,
there may be some other office where I mean, there's
always going to be at least in my experience, there

(06:50):
was always a gatekeeper, but maybe not. And they have
access to these areas. The new policy media policy requires
these same Pentagon credential journalists to sign a pledge, and

(07:10):
I have to say that bugs me. It does bug me.
The pledge that they sign prohibits them from gathering or
publishing any information about the Pentagon or the Department of
War Department of Defense, including unclassified material, including material that's

(07:34):
in the public domain. Wait to say that again, unclassified material,
material that may be in the public domain, meaning that
maybe it's a press release. Now I would assume it
wouldn't apply to a press release, but there's nothing in
it that tells me really that it wouldn't apply to
a press release. It prohibits them from gathering or publishing

(08:00):
any information about the Pentagon or the Department, including unclassified
Let's just leave it at unclassified material unless that information
of that material has been expressly authorized for lease by
an appropriate government official. So every the way I interpret it,

(08:22):
and maybe my interpretation is wrong, and we're not going
to find out until they start implementing this and we
start having concrete examples. But it appears to me that
if I walk into a benign office, a contracting office,

(08:44):
and I want to see a contract and that contract's
not classified, an official in that office would have to
approve me seeing a contract, which I could probably obtain
via a FOLIA requests or Freedom of Information Act request,

(09:08):
but I, as a journalist, can't see it unless an
official that has domain over that contract has expressly authorized
its lease release and has to be an appropriate government official. Okay,
that bugsman.

Speaker 3 (09:26):
I'm a little slow here, but that's bad.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
Yeah, it gets worse. Journalists that refuse to sign or
adhere to the pledge risk Now, they were pretty careful
in their wording, but they risk losing their credentials. And
of course, if you lose your credentials, then you lose

(09:52):
your access to the Pentagon facilities and the press briefings.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
Huh.

Speaker 4 (10:00):
So I have to sign a document that says before
I print or write anything based on any documents or information. Now,
I want to distinguish between a document and information. It's
not unusual for any government official and I'm not just

(10:23):
talking about you know, a secretary, a deputy secretary, and undersecretary.
I'm talking about you know, a contracting officer, a procurement officer,
a public information officer, UH, the secretary of the Navy,
secretary of the Air Force. I mean, it's just or
the you know, the undersecretary. Any of these people are
often confronted by journalists, not just in their offices and

(10:47):
not just in their office buildings, but at lunch, in
the cafeteria and in a restaurant somewhere. Journalists would come
up to me at different in places and oftentimes ask
me questions about Hey, on the hill, they're talking about
X y Z. Do you have a comment about that? Now?

(11:09):
If I knew about the issue, and I'd been briefed
about the issue, and I had and I understood what
the the statement of Administration position was the SAPs, or
I'd been given talking points by my press office, I
might answer the question on the fly. Or if it

(11:29):
was a kind of a deniging question, I might answer
on the fly. But I would always, you know, quickly
through my brain try to analyze do I want to
answer this question? Not answer this question? And I'd go
through all that btany of things. And sometimes I would
answer the question maybe because it would be about some policy.
There was a long standing policy, and I would just

(11:51):
tell them about it, then bother me. And if you know,
if it's controversial, well, the FEC's out of me. It's controversial.
I didn't care. But this idea that you're going to
lose access to the Pentagon or I think any other

(12:14):
installation and press briefings.

Speaker 3 (12:18):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (12:20):
Now. Before that, just to make clear, previously common unescorted
movement by reporters within the building existed, but will now
be heavily curtailed. More areas will now be off limits
unless a press escort is present. And again to make

(12:43):
sure we understand the comparison correctly, the prior DLD policy,
while always including basic security requirements and always of course
included restriction classified information, allowed credential journalists broad access within
the Pentagon. Reporters could move with relatively ease relative freedom.

(13:06):
They could conduct informal interviews with officials. They could report
on any information they had lawfully obtained, including unclassified briefings, documents, interviews,
even if government officials did not specifically authorize the material
for release. The new policy, in other words, replaces a

(13:28):
system premised on a balance of national security and our
is the public's right to know. And instead we now
have a tightly controlled regime in which only government vetted
information can be published. Let me say that again, in
which only government vetted information can be published. Now, maybe

(13:52):
that's a radical take on the policy, but just on
a basic just let's just read it at face value,
That's the way I read it.

Speaker 3 (14:04):
Now.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
The core conflict between the new and the old policy
is an inversion of the presumption of openness. Previously, reporters
can report on any lawfully obtained non classified information without
prior approval, and now the policy presumes that all information
is off limits unless expressly cleared by a DLD employee. So,

(14:28):
where the old policy focused restrictions only on classified or
otherwise legally protected content, for example, OPSECT operational security, you
may not have access to that, and you may be
restricted from publishing anything that you might inadvertently learn about that. Instead,

(14:49):
the new policy tries to preemptively, am using that word,
carefully preemptively prevent the press from publishing even unclassified material
us it has been officially released. Now, obviously we got
critics in the media. They're, you know, they're they're they're
pooping their pants over this one. They contend that this

(15:12):
shifts Pentagon reporting toward government's stenography. That's at least the
way the New York Times described it. And I think
it undermines the independent scrutiny at one of our most
consequential institutions. It also arises, and you knew, I get there,

(15:33):
it raises really serious First Amendment considerations about prior restraint.
It raises profound First Amendment questions, most importantly, the doctrine
of prior restraint. If you recall the Pentagon Papers decided
by the US Supreme Court in nineteen seventy one New
York Times versus United States, the Supreme Court made clear

(15:55):
that any attempt by the government to bar publication of
information in advance, particularly where that information is lawfully obtained
and is not classified, that kind of restraint faces a
nearly insurmountable constitutional burden. So this new policy's blanket prohibition

(16:17):
against publishing non cleared material under threat of credential revocation,
I think is a form of prior restraint. Now, I'm
not Professor Turley, I'm not Professor Dershowitz. I'm not Professor
Clay Travis, but at a minimum, the policy probably is

(16:43):
going to have a chilling effect and is going to
deter lawful reporting that would otherwise be in the public interest.
The policy, I think amounts to an unconstitutional condition a
government benefit. Access is only given to a journalist who
waives their First Amendment rights. So this creates a credentially regime,

(17:10):
and if it's implemented as I assume it'll be implemented,
can be used as a lever to control content. Now
that kind of stuff has been condemned by courts when
you use it to punish or deter critical or independent journalism.
So it requires all press to refrain from publishing or

(17:32):
gathering any information, even unclassified, unless it's government approved. Wow,
Unless it's government approved, it gets rid of press autonomy
and building access with tightly restricted state fitted reporting. It
contravenes the old policy, and it's almost certainly intention with,

(17:55):
if not in violation of the First Amendments prohibition on priorities.
Right those cases, let me describe to you next, So
get your law school notebook.

Speaker 1 (18:07):
Yet, the comment about AOC was not a comment about
her and her weight or anything like that.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
It was a comment on how men are.

Speaker 1 (18:18):
That's it, Michael.

Speaker 5 (18:20):
As a woman, I just find it kind of strange.
In fact, I find it unbelievable that AOC is more
afraid of a policeman than she is a rapist.

Speaker 3 (18:33):
I guess.

Speaker 5 (18:34):
I mean, I don't even know what to say about that.
Just speaks volumes as to what she thinks and what
she fears. Anyway, I just thought i'd say that as
a woman, I can't believe it.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
Those are two very beautiful, very smart women. I have
no idea if they're beautiful or not, but I'm just
going to say that they're beautiful because.

Speaker 4 (18:57):
I'm just because I'm not sure about the first voice,
but I know the second voice. Do you know the
first voice?

Speaker 1 (19:05):
Oh?

Speaker 4 (19:05):
Okay, okay.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
You know that they both of them leave, you know,
talkbacks quite frequently, so you know they're listeners to us.
So clearly they're beautiful, you know.

Speaker 4 (19:13):
So they must be two of the four that don't
hate us out of the twelve. So fifty percent of
the audience that likes us, those four are female.

Speaker 3 (19:24):
Huh who knew?

Speaker 4 (19:26):
Yeah, Well, it's because you and I are both so
sexy and handsome. And so desirable, and so you know, well,
you know kind of like we're the modern day Charles Atlas.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
Back off, ladies, We're very modern.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
Day Arnold Schwarzenegger. That's what we are. Person Why I
always shower in the dark. I don't have to look,
I don't have to see anything in the mirror. Well,
we go from showering in the dark to Supreme Court decisions. Yeah,
you need to see Dan Caples for the whiplash listening
to this program. That's right. The Supreme Court doctrine on

(20:06):
prior restraint is now there's only a tiny handful of
of narrow, historically established exceptions to that general rule. But
a couple of decisions formed the background on the prohibition
against prior restraint Near versus Minnesota nineteen thirty one. That

(20:30):
would be the foundational case. It struck down to law
in Minnesota that allowed officials to censor future newspaper publications
that were deemed malicious, scandalous, or defamatory. I only laughed
because I remember reading about this case in law school,
and I thought, well, they didn't take a lot of

(20:51):
geniuses to figure that decision out, because you're going to
censor a newspaper from publishing a story that is militias, scandalous,
or defamatory. Well, there are other remedies for if it's
truly defamatory, you have other remedies. And if you are

(21:11):
trying to censor something that you think is defamatory, well
then maybe you're admitting that it's defamatory. They concluded that
doing that in that case was an unconstitutional prior restraint,
and they emphasized that the First Amendment prohibits efforts by
government writ large to bar publications in advance, excepting those

(21:35):
extremely limited contexts, and those would be like national security
issues or troop movements. But then the core case is
New York Times versus United States. This is the Pentagon
Papers case from nineteen seventy one. Yes, I even studied
that went in law school. That's just how freaking old
I am. Because it's a nineteen seventy one case. In

(22:01):
this is a landmark case. The court faced an urgent
government request. They wanted to halt publication of classified documents
related to the Vietnam War. The government argued for prior
restraint based on national security. The Supreme Court, using the

(22:22):
Near versus Minnesota case, refused to allow such restraint. They
said that the government did not meet the heavy burden
of justification for pre publication censorship. Now, the Court was
clear that even national security alone can't generally override the

(22:42):
First Amendment unless there is proof, and the government would
be the government would have the burden of proof in
this case to show that there was a grave in
irreparable danger. Now, several justices underscored that any system of
prior restraint comes to the Court with a presumption against

(23:04):
its constitutionality, and there are several other cases, but current
Supreme Court doctrine requires that any attempt at prior restraint
must overcome that heavy presumption of invalidity, and in almost
all cases of the government fails to meet that burden,
and restraint is almost always struck down unless justified by

(23:26):
that imminent, grave and irreparable harm standard. And that's the
standard that's not easily met under the First Amendment. Those
precedents remain central in this debate about this new action.
Now aget I go to an extreme example. But let's
take a non extreme example. Let's say, for example, that

(23:48):
we have classified documents from two thousand technically would be
from two thousand and one or two thousand and two
about some troop movements or something in Afghanistan or something
with regard to when we took over the old Russian

(24:08):
Air Force base and started rebuilding it bogram and it's
no longer showing any it's still classified, but somehow it
gets leaked. Now, somebody that leaks it may be in trouble.
But if this was a modern Pentagon Papers case and

(24:31):
the New York Times wanted to publish that classified information,
who's got the problem. Well, I'd say the leakers got
a problem for violating his his clearances. But does the
New York Times have a problem. No, the government has
a problem because the New York Times someone just let's

(24:52):
say that nobody even hands it to them. Somebody mails
it to them, and they look at it. Now there's
some respect a billion the part of the New York Times.
They have to look at it and ascertain whether or
not this is going to present irreparable harm to the
United States. If they decide that it doesn't, Now any

(25:16):
reputable organization like the New York Times would say, Hey,
they call up Pete Hexath and say, we've gotten these
classified documents. Now we're not going to tell you we
got them, or we might say, yeah, they came in.
They came in a Manila in a manilla envelope left
at the front desk. That's how we got them. And

(25:36):
we've read through them and we don't think that there's
anything in here that is going to impugne national security.
So we're getting ready to run a story in a
couple of days about it. Do you have any comment.
My guess is that Pete Hegsath and the Department of
Justice would immediately run to the courts and try to
get a restraining order and to enjoin The New York
Times from publishing that information. In a hearing on a

(26:01):
preliminary injunction, the question would be does this cause irreverable harm?
Unless they can show that, which I doubt they could,
then prior restraints going to be invalidated, and the New
York Times is going to be allowed to publish the story.
As much as I despise the New York Times, that's journalism,

(26:26):
that's real journalism. And handling it the way I just
described it would be the way if I was running
the New York Times is exactly the way I would
run it, because I would not want to make the
assumption myself that oh, this is not going to harm
national security. I'd at least give the Department of War
the opportunity to make that case and take me to court,

(26:50):
primarily because I would be fairly confident that I was
going to win. The Pentagon Papers actually turned out to
be in the public interest. Now, many people may disagree
with that statement, but I think the Pentagon Papers were
incredibly important, and I'm glad that they were produced, and
I'm glad that New York Times printed them. In fact,

(27:12):
I may still have in my library somewhere. I may
have a copy of the Pentagon Papers, because obviously we
read it and studied it both an undergraduate and in
law school. So back to this new policy at DD
or DOW, whatever the hell we call it now, I
think they've overstepped their bounds. They've way overstepped their bounds. Hey,

(27:37):
Mike and Dragon. Hey, as a woman, I'm offended by
AOC's comments. That is offensive.

Speaker 1 (27:43):
Excuse me as I go and do my nails and
don't forget to tuck.

Speaker 4 (27:49):
Oh my gosh, don't forget to tuck. By the way,
we had another one that was left. And Dragon, I
both decided that it was just close enough to the
line that we decided not to play the second one
regarding the same.

Speaker 3 (28:05):
Thing, absolutely hilarious. Oh, totally hilarious.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Probably not airworthy, but will be with the regular talkback
section on the podcast.

Speaker 4 (28:15):
True, it's.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
What you want.

Speaker 4 (28:20):
That's right, that's right. Trump arrangement syndrome is, I honestly believe,
a form of mental illness that can lead to serious
health issues. Now, when the administration sought recently to suggest
that Aceta meniphon, now I know that Trump used the
word tailandol, but they were actually referring to Aceta meniphon.

(28:42):
That's kind of like Kleenex. Kleenex is a brand, it's
a brand of tissues. Xerox is a brand, but they're
gonna go xerox this. I don't think people do that
so much anymore. Thailandol has become synonymous with a Ceda menaphon.
They're apparently all are women. In fact, I've watched one

(29:05):
TikTok online of a pregnant woman opening. I mean, I
can't but I can't believe it because of the second
TikTok that I'm going to play for you of her
just virtually emptying a bottle of tailanol. I don't know
how many milligrams, and you know they've they've got some.

(29:26):
You know. Of course I couldn't play anyway because Dragon
couldn't put it up because they got some music playing
in the background. And she just downs. I don't know,
I bet she downs five thousand milligrams of tailanol. Then
the second TikTok, I have to fast forward through part
of them because she drops an F bomb. But she

(29:47):
has a friend who is an er nurse, and she
points out that the er nurse is reporting that they're
seeing and a spike in the number of women showing
up at the er for a seed of Menifhin toxicity
because they're infected with Trump derangement syndrome.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Because these are adults, these are adult women, and they
are now sending themselves to the emergency room.

Speaker 4 (30:20):
Because they're taking too much tailanol out of spite for Trump.

Speaker 3 (30:30):
I'm I cannot It's like, are you are you kidding me?

Speaker 4 (30:35):
No, she's not kidde us. And she goes on to
describe how you know this is a good friend of her.
She works in an er facility, she's a registered nurse,
and they've got a spike in women showing up for
a set of meniphon toxicity PDS is real. Now forget
whether there's a correlation or causal link between a seed

(30:57):
of menifon and uh autism. The fact remains that if
you are going to the er for acena menaphine toxicity
and you are pregnant, that baby's liver is not ready
to metabolize acena menaphon, and you're toxic yourself, good grief.

(31:26):
What is wrong with people?