President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday that he recently spoke with Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan president whom the State Department recently identified as the leader of a foreign terrorist organization and for whom the U.S. is offering a $50 million bounty.
Trump would not elaborate on the nature or details of the call, which reportedly occurred last week. When asked whether it went well, Trump said, "I wouldn't say it went well or badly. It was a phone call."
'That's going to start very soon.'
Sources allegedly familiar with the exchange told the Miami Herald that the White House gave Maduro an ultimatum: "Safe passage would be guaranteed for him, his wife Cilia Flores, and his son only if he agreed to resign right away."
The leadership in Caracas reportedly proposed in turn that Maduro surrender control to his political opposition but maintain control of the country's military.
One source told the Herald that the call amounted to a last-ditch effort to stave off a direct confrontation.
"First, Maduro asked for global amnesty for any crimes he and his group had committed," said the source. "Second, they asked to retain control of the armed forces — similar to what happened in Nicaragua in ’91 with Violeta Chamorro. In return, they would allow free elections."
Washington rejected both proposals, and Caracas rejected, in turn, the demand that Maduro resign immediately, said the source.
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The White House did not respond to Blaze News' request for comment.
An individual in regular contact with regime officials recently told the Wall Street Journal that Maduro and his cohort largely regard Washington's threats as a bluff.
The skepticism in Caracas appears misplaced, given that the Trump administration has not only proven willing to blow away scores of alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers in the Caribbean Sea, incurring international and domestic condemnations in the process, but has amassed over a dozen warships and 15,000 troops in the region.
The Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, which entered the Caribbean Sea last month, features the world's largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, as well as over 70 aircraft, two Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, and an integrated air and missile defense command ship, the destroyer USS Winston S. Churchill, the Navy said.
The carrier strike group joined the two guided-missile destroyers that were already operating in the Caribbean along with a pair of guided-missile cruisers — the USS Lake Erie and the USS Gettysburg — and elements of the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, which includes the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit.
The source in contact with regime officials told the Journal that Maduro figures the only way the U.S. can remove him from power is by sending troops to Caracas.
In his Thanksgiving Day address to U.S. troops, Trump lauded the efforts of the U.S. Air Force's 7th Bomb Wing for its efforts to "deter Venezuelan drug traffickers" by sea and hinted at taking the fight ashore, stating, "We'll be starting to stop them by land."
"The land is easier," said Trump. "But that's going to start very soon."
On Saturday, Trump said in a social media post, "To all Airlines, Pilots, Drug Dealers, and Human Traffickers, please consider THE AIRSPACE ABOVE AND SURROUNDING VENEZUELA TO BE CLOSED IN ITS ENTIRETY."
It appears that Caracas may now be taking the Trump administration more seriously.
Venezuela's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday, "Venezuela denounces and condemns the colonialist threat that seeks to affect the sovereignty of its airspace, constituting yet another extravagant, illegal, and unjustified aggression against the Venezuelan people."
Citing sources familiar with the matter, CNN indicated that Trump will hold a meeting at the White House on Monday to discuss next steps on Venezuela.
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Every November, America pauses to thank its veterans. As Thanksgiving approaches — and as we mark Veterans and Military Families Month — it’s worth remembering that real gratitude does not begin in ceremonies. It begins in living rooms, workplaces, and communities willing to listen.
When I returned from Iraq, I believed my mission was complete. I had led soldiers through chaos during the invasion of Baghdad and made it home alive. What I didn’t expect was the second battle: reintegration. Purpose felt less defined. Connection felt harder to find. The uniform came off, but the transition demanded its own kind of discipline.
Service doesn’t end on the battlefield. It continues in the boardroom, the classroom, the town hall — and at the dinner table.
Like many veterans, I learned that coming home isn’t an ending. It’s a transfer of duty.
That duty is carried not just by veterans but by the families who stand behind them. A spouse manages a household while absorbing the worry that never quite fades. A child learns resilience from absence. A parent hopes each phone call means his son or daughter is one day closer to coming home — and able to stay.
My son is now a second lieutenant in the Army. Watching him begin his own journey reminds me that service does not stop at the edge of a battlefield. It moves through generations. Families carry it alongside us.
Thanksgiving offers a natural moment to reflect on gratitude — not the polite version, but the kind that demands something from us.
It demands employers who recognize leadership potential behind a résumé gap.
It demands communities willing to listen before advising.
It demands fellow veterans who know that strength includes accepting help, not just offering it.
Most of all, it demands that Americans see military families not as supporting characters but as central figures in the story of national resilience.
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The wars of the last two decades lasted longer than anyone expected. Their consequences will last even longer. We owe it to the next generation — including my son’s — to show that a nation’s strength is not measured only by how it deploys its forces, but by how it welcomes them back.
As we close Veterans and Military Families Month and gather around Thanksgiving tables, we can honor veterans in a simple but meaningful way: not by assuming we understand their experience, but by inviting them to share it. Not by thanking them once a year, but by offering them roles in which their judgment, discipline, and experience make a difference.
Service doesn’t end on the battlefield. It continues in the boardroom, the classroom, the town hall — and at the dinner table.
President Donald Trump has in recent months brokered peaceful resolutions between numerous warring parties, including Israel and Hamas; Azerbaijan and Armenia; Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo; Cambodia and Thailand; and India and Pakistan.
The major peace he campaigned on securing between Ukraine and Russia has, however, proven elusive.
Last week, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his government's representative to the U.N. appeared to reject the fundamentals of the Trump administration's 28-point plan for peace.
The plan would have: barred Ukraine from NATO, having an army exceeding 600,000 men, and acquiring nukes but provided Kyiv with a NATO-style security guarantee from the U.S.; recognized much of the occupied territory in eastern Ukraine as Russian; set the stage for an American-backed rebuilding of Ukraine; and granted full amnesty to all parties involved in the conflict.
'Don't believe it until you see it.'
While apparently averse to several of the 28 points, Kyiv has, however, since expressed support for an altered version of the peace plan, the details of which Trump and Zelenskyy — who has reportedly not authorized anyone but himself to discuss territorial matters — may soon iron out at the White House.
An official briefed on the negotiations told the Washington Post that Trump's peace plan had been reduced from 28 points to 19 points by Monday. A European official briefed on the talks suggested that some of the provisions concerning European security didn't make it to the new draft.
Ukrainian delegate Oleksandr Bevz noted, "Many of the controversial provisions were either softened or at least reshaped" to get Kyiv on board.
RELATED: Zelenskyy's hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle
After Ukraine's delegation returned from Geneva, where they met over the weekend to discuss the American peace proposal with representatives of the Trump administration, Zelenskyy said in a statement on Monday evening that "now the list of necessary steps to end the war can become doable. As of now, after Geneva, there are fewer points — no longer 28 — and many of the right elements have been taken into account in this framework."
"Our team has reported on the new draft of steps, and this is indeed the right approach," continued Zelenskyy. "I will discuss the sensitive issues with President Trump."
Echoing Zelenskyy, Ukraine's national security secretary Rustem Umerov announced that the U.S. and Ukrainian delegations "reached a common understanding on the core terms of the agreement discussed in Geneva."
Amid U.S. Army Secretary Daniel Driscoll's meetings on Tuesday with Russian and Ukrainian officials in Abu Dhabi, which a spokesman said were "going well," a U.S. official told CNN that "the Ukrainians have agreed to the peace deal. There are some minor details to be sorted out, but they have agreed to a peace deal."
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed on Tuesday that "tremendous progress towards a peace deal" has been made, adding that "there are a few delicate, but not insurmountable, details that must be sorted out and will require further talks between Ukraine, Russia, and the United States."
Secretary of State Marco Rubio effectively said the same thing days earlier, adding, "I honestly believe we'll get there."
During a press conference with the Belarusian foreign minister on Tuesday, Russian foreign affairs minister Sergey Lavrov noted that Moscow "welcomed" the 28-point plan but will consider the "interim" plan produced by Washington, Kyiv, and the Europeans in the coming days.
Lavrov noted, however, that Russia expects the peace plan to adhere to the terms President Vladimir Putin discussed with Trump during their August summit in Anchorage.
"We are not hurrying. We're not pushing our American counterparts. We have waited a long time since Anchorage," said Lavrov. "We are only reminding them that we stick to those agreements."
Lavrov added, "If the spirit and letter of Anchorage is erased in terms of the key understandings we have established then, of course, it will be a fundamentally different situation."
Trump noted in a Truth Social post on Monday, "Is it really possible that big progress is being made in Peace Talks between Russia and Ukraine??? Don't believe it until you see it, but something good just may be happening. GOD BLESS AMERICA!"
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Despite numerous setbacks, President Donald Trump remains committed to ending the war between Russia and Ukraine — a war that has resulted in over a million casualties and turned much of Eastern Ukraine into drone-netted wasteland.
To this end, his administration has drafted a 28-point peace plan that would give both warring parties something they want: for Russia, concessions to much of the land it presently occupies in Eastern Ukraine; and for Ukraine, a NATO-style security guarantee from the United States.
'We're back to square one.'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy initially expressed a willingness to work with the administration on the plan, which was presented to him in writing on Thursday by U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, but he has since joined others in casting doubt on its workability.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted on Wednesday evening, "Ending a complex and deadly war such as the one in Ukraine requires an extensive exchange of serious and realistic ideas. And achieving a durable peace will require both sides to agree to difficult but necessary concessions."
"That is why we are and will continue to develop a list of potential ideas for ending this war based on input from both sides of this conflict," Rubio added.
RELATED: Zelenskyy's hold on power uncertain as criminal charges reach his inner circle
The following day, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt acknowledged that Rubio and U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff "have been working on a plan quietly for about the last month."
"They have been engaging with both sides, Russia and Ukraine equally, to understand what these countries would commit to in order to see a lasting and durable peace," Leavitt continued. "That's how you get to a peace negotiation."
The plan's 28 points as of Thursday are as follows, according to Axios and Agence France-Presse:
European diplomats and other establishmentarians immediately began clutching pearls over the plan, apparently convinced that there is yet a better way to resolve or win what is effectively an 11-year-old war.
"We're back to square one," one senior European official told the Financial Times.
Another European diplomat working on a response to Trump's plan said, "It basically means capitulation [to Moscow]."
"For any plan to work, it needs Ukrainians and Europeans on board," said European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas. "We haven't heard of any concessions on the Russian side."
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot said, "Peace cannot be a capitulation."
'Our red lines are clear and unwavering.'
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, for instance, suggested that the plan was a "surrender agreement," adding that "Ukrainian courage and patriotism should not be betrayed by Americans growing tired of stopping evil."
Douglas Murray, a gay neoconservative who complained last year that the West was "drunk on peace," wrote in his New York Post column, "Perhaps this is just an opening gambit, but it must be clear to any observer that these are not terms that any Ukrainian government could agree to."
The Institute for the Study of War said that "the stipulations of the reported 28-point Russia-U.S. peace plan amount to Ukraine's full capitulation to Russia's original war demands."
Zelenskyy, whose presidential term officially ended 18 months ago, initially broke from the naysayers, tweeting on Thursday, "Our teams — of Ukraine and the United States — will work on the provisions of the plan to end the war. We are ready for constructive, honest and swift work."
However, in a 10-minute address on Friday to his beleaguered nation, Zelenskyy framed the choice of accepting the peace plan in dire terms.
"Now the pressure on Ukraine is one of the most difficult. Now Ukraine may find itself facing a very difficult choice: either the loss of dignity or the risk of losing a key partner," Zelenskyy said. "Either [Trump's] 28 points or an extremely difficult winter, the most difficult and further risks — life without freedom, without dignity, without justice."
The previous day, Zelenskyy stated, "It is important that the outcome be a dignified peace."
Kristina Gayovishin, Ukraine's deputy permanent representative to the U.N., effectively told the globalist body's security council that concessions to Moscow and military reductions were off the table.
"While Ukraine stands ready to engage in meaningful negotiations to end this war, our red lines are clear and unwavering," Gayovishin said. "There will never be any recognition, formal or otherwise, of Ukrainian territory temporarily occupied by the Russian Federation as Russian. Our land is not for sale."
"We will not accept any limits on our right to self-defense or on the size and capabilities of our armed force," the Ukrainian diplomat continued. "Nor will we tolerate any infringement on our sovereignty, including our sovereign right to choose the alliances we want to join."
Gayovishin added, "Nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. And nothing about Europe without Europe."
American officials have emphasized that the 28-point peace plan is a working document and therefore prone to change.
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My high school history teacher, back in 1989, asked our class to name the single biggest problem facing the United States. We wrote our answers anonymously, and he tallied the results. When he read mine aloud — “the federal government’s debt” — he rolled his eyes, as if I’d said something idiotic.
I didn’t name debt nearly 40 years ago just because I think borrowing is bad. I named it because elected officials were already pretending deficit spending wasn’t a problem — and because no one seemed willing to hold the government accountable for it.
The more the Fed prints, the weaker the dollar becomes. The weaker the dollar becomes, the more the world doubts it.
Almost four decades on, nothing has changed. The problem has only grown — as every neglected problem does.
In 1989, the budget deficit was $153 billion. The total national debt stood at $2.86 trillion.
By 2024, the annual deficit had exploded to $1.8 trillion, and the total debt hit $35 trillion. Interest payments now consume 3% of GDP, and they’re still climbing. Meanwhile, the country faces $210 trillion in unfunded liabilities, mostly Social Security and Medicare.
The United States is broke. And Americans act as if it doesn’t matter.
The federal government has been shut down for three weeks. Republicans want to keep spending at ruinous levels. Democrats want to spend even more ruinously. Both sides ignore the obvious: We’re bankrupt. And nobody in America seems to care.
Congress hasn’t passed a real budget since 1996. For nearly 30 years, lawmakers have funded everything through “continuing resolutions,” which automatically renew old spending and add new layers on top. Every “temporary” increase becomes permanent.
The 2009 “one-time” $831 billion stimulus? Still baked in. The $4.6 trillion COVID “relief” binge? Never rolled back. Dozens of other “emergency” expenditures have quietly become fixtures of federal spending.
Year after year, Washington keeps the faucet open — and the debt grows.
By 2024, U.S. GDP was $29.2 trillion. Federal debt was $35 trillion. That’s a debt-to-GDP ratio of 123%. And Washington keeps spending as if it can print reality.
No one in America seems to care.
The rest of the world is starting to notice.
To fund its deficits, the U.S. Treasury sells bonds — IOUs that investors buy with the promise of repayment plus interest. Lately, those auctions have gone poorly. The world’s appetite for American debt is fading.
As one financial analysis put it: “Given the poor state of the American fiscal situation, auctions will likely remain large for the foreseeable future. The risk that markets will push back is rising.”
Another report warned that persistent $2 trillion deficits during peacetime raise “important questions about what might happen during a recession or war.”
When investors balk, the Federal Reserve steps in, printing money to buy the debt. That fuels inflation — the same inflation that has already stripped 87% of the dollar’s value since we abandoned the gold standard in 1971.
The more the Fed prints, the weaker the dollar becomes. The weaker the dollar becomes, the more the world doubts it.
The only thing still propping up the dollar is its role as the world’s reserve currency — the global default for trade and central bank holdings since 1944. That status lets America keep spending money it doesn’t have. But the illusion can’t last forever.
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The BRICS nations — Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa — are challenging the dollar’s dominance. They’ve added members such as Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates. Saudi Arabia, the world’s second-largest oil producer, has been invited to join. At least 40 other nations are lining up.
As Business Insider put it, “BRICS is consolidating its global power and influence. This should be a key cause of concern for the U.S., as new members could amplify de-dollarization.”
So what has Washington done? Cut spending? Tighten the money supply? Restore fiscal sanity? Of course not.
Instead, the government rattles sabers. President Donald Trump recently threatened a 100% tariff on the BRICS bloc countries if they move to undermine the dollar — as if bluster could paper over decades of reckless spending.
The United States is broke but still pretending otherwise. Washington spends like a drunk who keeps ordering drinks on a canceled credit card. The world is beginning to call the bluff.
And the American people? They’re still sleepwalking — as they have been for decades.
President Donald Trump has worked ardently to bring an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine — a war that has resulted in millions of casualties and transformed much of Eastern Ukraine into drone-netted wasteland.
Fresh off brokering a tenuous ceasefire in Gaza and speaking with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy at the White House on Friday.
'They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!'
While Trump suggested on social media that the meeting was "cordial," there are reports indicating that it descended at times into a "shouting match" reminiscent of Zelenskyy's disastrous visit to the White House in February.
Zelenskyy evidently saw his trip to the White House as an opportunity to ask Trump for long-range Tomahawk missiles. The Ukrainian president seeks to use such missiles in concert with long-range drones to strike targets deep inside Russia, including military bases, factories, oil infrastructure, and command centers — as well as Moscow — in hopes of turning the tide in the war and improving Kiev's position in future negotiations.
In exchange for the Tomahawk cruise missiles, Zelenskyy — who spoke earlier in the day with representatives of Raytheon, the manufacturer of Tomahawk missiles — indicated that Kiev could provide the U.S. with some advanced drones.
Trump, who allegedly cursed repeatedly during the meeting, poured cold water on the idea. Rather than hand over weapons that he believes America should retain for its own defense and, in the context of the Russia-Ukraine war, would amount to an escalation, Trump once again impressed on Zelenskyy the need to negotiate an immediate end to the war.
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Trump echoed this suggestion Friday evening on Truth Social, writing, "I told him, as I likewise strongly suggested to President Putin, that it is time to stop the killing, and make a DEAL! Enough blood has been shed, with property lines being defined by War and Guts."
"They should stop where they are. Let both claim Victory, let History decide!" continued Trump. "No more shooting, no more Death, no more vast and unsustainable sums of money spent."
The Financial Times, citing a European official briefed on the meeting, reported that Trump told Zelenskyy that it was imperative that he make a deal to end the war, allegedly noting that "if [Putin] wants it, he will destroy you."
There are, however, conflicting reports about the contentiousness of Trump's meeting with Zelenskyy.
One EU diplomat told Politico, for instance, that the meeting was "not as bleak as reported."
A pair of Republican foreign policy experts with direct knowledge of the meeting suggested Trump had not engaged in any cursing.
One GOP foreign policy expert characterized the meeting as "a dud for the Ukrainians rather than a disaster." The other suggested that "it wasn’t a bad meeting, just a victim of poor timing and inflated expectations."
Blaze News has reached out to the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs for comment.
The European official further told the Times that at one point during the meeting, Trump brushed aside one of Ukraine's maps of the battlefield, saying the sight of it made him "sick."
"This red line, I don't even know where this is," Trump allegedly said.
Russia presently occupies around 20% of the entire country and most of the Donbas — including all of the Luhansk region, most of the largely Russian-speaking Donetsk region, much of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, and parts of the Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
While Moscow has made gradual territorial gains over the past year, recent analysis by the Institute for the Study of War suggests that Russian forces are several years away from capturing the remainder of the Donetsk region, which "contains territory that is strategically vital for Ukraine’s defense and defense industrial base."
Two senior officials familiar with Trump's conversation last week with Putin told the Washington Post that the Russian president has conditioned ending the war on Ukraine's surrender of Donetsk — a proposal Zelenskyy apparently remains unwilling to accept.
Zelenskyy — whose term officially ended in May 2024 — told reporters after his meeting with the American president that Putin had asked Trump to "withdraw from the Donbas — not the entire east, but specifically the Donbas, that is, completely from the Donetsk and Luhansk regions."
The Ukrainian president suggested further that he "made it clear" to Trump "that Ukraine's stance in this context remains unchanged."
"Trump wants a quick victory — an end to the war — and that would be a victory for all reasonable people," Zelenskyy later told reporters. "Putin, however, wants the total occupation of Ukraine."
Zelenskyy said in an address on Saturday, "We will give nothing to the aggressor."
'Zelenskyy was very negative.'
President Trump said in an interview with Fox News' Maria Bartiromo that aired on Sunday, "[Putin is] going to take something. I mean, they fought, and he has a lot of property. I mean, you know, he's won certain property."
Trump told reporters on Sunday, "We think that what they should do is just stop at the lines where they are — the battle lines."
As for the Donbas region, Trump said, "I think 78% of the land is already taken by Russia. You leave it the way it is right now."
Although Zelenskyy suggested the needle had been moved where ending the war was concerned, another European official briefed on the Friday meeting told the Financial Times that "Zelenskyy was very negative" after the American president sent him on his way.
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President Donald Trump may have resolved several bloody conflicts since retaking office, but he is clearly not averse to executing military strikes in the Western Hemisphere in the interest of protecting the American people.
The president announced on Sept. 2, for instance, that he had ordered a strike that killed 11 individuals on an apparent narcoterrorist drug boat that was headed to the United States. Following a series of similar attacks, Trump revealed on Tuesday that the U.S. military had conducted yet another lethal strike on an alleged narcoterrorist vessel, killing six men "just off the Coast of Venezuela."
'Venezuela is feeling heat.'
Trump, who has suggested that every such drug boat vaporized amounts to 25,000 American lives saved, confirmed on Wednesday that the U.S. will not limit its actions against Venezuelan cartels, which the administration does not distinguish from the socialist Maduro regime, to kinetic maritime strikes.
The president confirmed on Wednesday — months after the State Department increased the bounty for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to $50 million and weeks after White House special envoy Richard Grenell reportedly cut off all diplomatic outreach to Venezuela on the president's instruction — that he has authorized the CIA to conduct covert actions on the ground in Venezuela.
During a news conference in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump said he made the authorization for two reasons: first because Venezuela has "emptied their prisons into the United States of America" and second because of the drugs Venezuelan terrorists smuggle into the U.S.
Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the New York Times reported earlier in the day that the authorization meant the CIA could execute lethal operations both in Venezuela — against Maduro and his regime — and elsewhere in the Caribbean, where Trump recently notified Congress that the U.S. is now engaged "in a non-international armed conflict" with several terrorist organizations.
Trump said of the efforts by South American cartels to smuggle drugs into the U.S., "We've almost totally stopped it by sea. Now we'll stop it by land."
RELATED: 'We will stop you cold': Trump announces successful strike against 'narcoterrorist' vessel
When asked whether he was considering executing land-based military strikes on enemy cartels, Trump said, "I don't want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now because we've got the sea very well under control."
Three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, the nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine USS Newport News, the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group, the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie, and the littoral combat ship USS Minneapolis-Saint Paul are presently operating in the region.
Maduro, whom the Trump administration has recognized as leader of the specially designated global terrorist organization Cartel de los Soles, claimed last month in response to the American military buildup in the region, "in response to maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum readiness to defend Venezuela."
Caracas has supposedly enlisted over 8 million Venezuelans as reservists.
When asked on Wednesday whether the CIA has "the authority to take out Maduro" — there is allegedly interest among a handful of senior officials in the Trump administration in orchestrating a regime change in Venezuela — the president said that was a "ridiculous question" for him to answer. Trump noted, however, that "Venezuela is feeling heat."
Maduro, whose alleged electoral victories in 2018 and 2024 are not recognized by the U.S., stated in response to Trump's remarks on Wednesday, "No to regime change that reminds us of the failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. … No to coups d’état carried out by the CIA."
Blaze News has reached out to the White House for comment.
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The Department of War has implemented new rules concerning press privileges and news-gathering at the Pentagon.
Even though the policy concerning reporter access is far less restrictive than an earlier version — the draft of which was floated last month — liberal publications have thrown fits and refused to acknowledge the new rules in exchange for press credentials.
'Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right.'
Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell emphasized last week that reporters and publications do not have to agree with the new "common-sense media procedures" but "just to acknowledge that they understand what our policy is."
Despite acknowledging that press credentials are conditioned on an understanding of the rules, not an agreement with them, the Pentagon Press Association characterized the rules as a form of intimidation, going so far as to suggest that they dishonor American military families.
War Secretary Pete Hegseth used an emoji to wave goodbye on Monday to the Atlantic, the New York Times, and the Washington Post when they pushed the PPA's framing and pronounced on X that they were not going to sign the agreement by the 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline.
Matt Murray, the Post's executive editor, who received Hegseth's pixelated adios, stated, "The proposed restrictions undercut First Amendment protections by placing unnecessary constraints on gathering and publishing information."
Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic's editor in chief, who has pushed his weight in fake news, and NYT Washington bureau chief Richard Stevenson similarly complained that the rules violated their teams' First Amendment rights.
The Associated Press, Breaking Defense, CNN, Newsmax, Reuters, Task & Purpose, and the Wall Street Journal are among the other publications that have indicated they will not agree to the new policy by deadline.
After bidding the liberal publications farewell, Hegseth noted for edification of "DUMMIES" in the media that the new rules are, in essence, that reporters can no longer roam free through the halls of the Pentagon; members of the press must wear visible badges; and the "credentialed press [is] no longer permitted to solicit criminal acts."
RELATED: Hegseth restores warrior ethos after years of woke Pentagon rot
Hegseth added that "Pentagon access is a privilege, not a right." Blaze News reached out to the Pentagon for clarity about that statement.
Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson noted that "despite good faith negotiations with representatives of the Pentagon Press Association, reporters would rather clutch their pearls on social media than stop trying to get warfighters and DOW civilians to commit a crime by violating Department-wide policy."
"We stand by our media policy," continued Wilson. "It's now up to them whether they'd like to report from the Pentagon or their newsroom."
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Without Iraq-style lies about Russia, the collusion hoax, the impeachment farce, and the 51 intel officials laundering deception for political gain, there likely would have been no Russia-Ukraine war.
Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and Navy Secretary John Phelan spoke of the dire national security need to revive U.S. manufacturing.
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