The rules limit access to several sections of the Pentagon, including office spaces belonging to Hegseth and the Joint Chiefs of Staff. They also bar the press from accessing the Pentagon Athletic Center, writing in a Friday X post that the new rules are meant to “reduce the opportunities for in-person inadvertent and unauthorized disclosures.”

The media will also be barred from offices of the Pentagon’s senior military leadership, including Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Dan Caine, without Hegseth’s approval and an escort from his aides. The staff of the Joint Chiefs has traditionally maintained a good relationship with the press.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has taken yet another step to curtail the work of the press inside the Pentagon by imposing harsh restrictions on where reporters can go without official escort in a memo released late Friday.