Jeffrey Goldberg

Neither you nor I thought the conversation was going to go that way.

No, no, no.

I understand.

I understand.

We've been kicked out of the Pentagon.

Is that what you're saying?

I want non-journalists to understand something, that our Pentagon correspondents know what's going on in the Pentagon, whether or not they're sitting in the Pentagon.

It's more convenient to sit in the Pentagon and in the old dispensation when you could

leave the press room and go to the Secretary of the Army's office or the Secretary of the Navy's office or sit in the mess and talk to people, sit in the cafeteria.

You know, there is utility to that, but it's not as if Hegseth is going to be able to stop independent reporting on the United States military because he won't let reporters in the building.

By the way, one other point about this that needs to be made is that, and I feel very, very strongly about this, it's like we have...

writ large in the mainstream media, I believe, a patriotic press corps.

And by that, I mean, let me explain.

I mean that the people I know want, as Americans, what's in the best interest of the serving men and women of the United States.

And

They are there to examine and bring to light the decision making of military leaders.

And they are there to be critical when those decisions are ill advised or if there's corruption or there's this, that and the other thing.

But they start from a premise.

That the United States has a powerful military and that's not a bad thing.

I mean, in other words, in other words, what Pete Hegseth would have you believe is that these are a bunch of DSA members or Cuban communists or something who are sitting there trying to undermine the very idea of national security.