In February 2023, Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi joined one another to bemoan the state of the First Amendment under the Biden administration.
Hegseth called it “scary” that the “First Amendment has become what appears to be a partisan issue.” Bondi responded: “It’s First Amendment when they say it is, and that’s the problem, Pete.”
Fast forward two and half years, and it’s Hegseth and Bondi – both now high-ranking Cabinet secretaries under President Donald Trump – who are leading the charge to rein in the First Amendment on the new administration’s terms.
But Tuesday brought a major and highly symbolic rebuke. Fox News, the very same network on which Hegseth and Bondi spoke back in 2023 and which employed Hegseth at the time, rejected his attempts to control media coverage of the Defense Department he now leads.
Fox signed a joint statement along with ABC News, CBS News, CNN, and NBC News that said Hegseth’s rules would “restrict journalists’ ability to keep the nation and the world informed of important national security issues.”
“The policy is with
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