This is not something you see everyday, a cabinet member going out of his way to disparage and demean the working press in a democratic country. Pete Hegseth sees the Fourth Estate as a kind of fifth column, in fact. He makes it clear that the press is the enemy, accusing them of all manner of bias. This is a harbinger of suppression, the speech you’re about to see. Oh, and Hegseth quotes his version of Gee-Suss to give it weight.
Hegseth: To the American media—I just can't help but notice the endless stream of garbage, the relentlessly negative coverage you cannot resist peddling. Sometimes it's hard to figure out what side some of you are actually on. It's incredibly unpatriotic.
Jesus entered a… pic.twitter.com/6K7mMK3yCq
— Acyn (@Acyn) April 16, 2026
There is one good thing to bear in mind: other countries, such as Canada and the UK, are not bashing their press like the press get bashed here. And they’re reporting the same facts. So in a truly Orwellian world, if it comes to that, we can get basic facts from the Toronto Star or the Times of London.
Hopefully it won’t get that bad. But you can clearly hear from Hegseth how he loathes the free press and would shut it down if he could.
Men like Hegseth have always existed in this country. The bottom of the Mississippi is strewn with printing presses from the days when people were lynched and the tools of a journalist’s trade were simply destroyed. Hegseth is of that ilk.
If he weren’t such a dick, he wouldn’t have to worry about the press. Just like Trump, all he knows how to do is get offended and attack. If he put that amount of energy into doing his actual job, things might be different for him. We all know he won’t.
Ironic that Kegsworth has issues with the press given he once worked at Fox.
No irony involved since Fox is a propaganda outlet, not “press.”