“We take our partnerships very seriously,” said Ms. Wilson.
James O’Keefe, who founded the right-wing group Project Veritas and now serves as CEO of the O’Keefe Media Group, asked Ms. Wilson about the steps the department took against Pentagon personnel aligned with the “movement” to resist Mr. Trump. Mrs. Wilson responded, “That’s why the work that you all do is so important. This is a big building and we want to make sure we have the absolute best people.”
Matt Gaetz, a former congressman and host of a program on One America News Network, asked Ms. Wilson on US planning in the event that Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela, leaves office. “The department has a contingency plan for everything. We are a planning organization,” said Ms. Wilson.
Mrs. Wilson was also asked if the department would provide regular briefings, something it has not done under Mr. Trump’s second administration. “We would love to. It would be great to get everybody in here,” she said.
Video of the briefing was posted on the Ministry of Defence’s official pages on YouTube and Facebook, among others. Since legacy media that did not sign the new restrictions were not allowed, there was no live coverage on C-SPAN or other major news networks. (C-SPAN declined to provide a statement on the situation.)
The revamped Pentagon press corps, a digitally aggressive crowd, announced its arrival to the building’s media areas on Monday. At least three press corps members, for example, claimed to have secured desk space once occupied by The Washington Post or one of its Pentagon reporters, Dan Lamothe.
One of the new members acknowledged the mix-up on X, writing: “Okay, it might have been a Bloomberg desk, we were told it was WaPo. Point is: we’re in, you’re out.”
Chris Cameron contributed with reporting.
