Pentagon experts warn 'enormous scandal' shows USA has 'already fallen off the cliff'

The Pentagon is requiring journalists to sign a pledge not to gather any information that has not been authorized for release — but a pair of reporters told MSNBC's "Morning Joe" that's not going to happen.

The rebranded Department of War threatens to cut off access to the Pentagon for reporters who publish information, including unclassified materials — but MSNBC's Jonathan Lemire and his Atlantic colleague Frank Foer agreed that order was highly inappropriate.

"I mean, the answer is no," Lemire said. "Journalists aren't going to dothis. This is not how thisworks. You know, there'sobviously classified material,that can be different, that'svetted separately. Responsiblenews organizations do that in aresponsible way. But the ideathat a memberof the Pentagon press corps orareporter writ large can only write what the government tells them to, that's not how it works inthe United States of America."

"Certainly a lotof press organizations condemnedthis immediately, a lot ofreporters took to social mediasaying they're not going toabide by this, and it's hard toknow how enforceable this is," Lemire added. "But we should note President Trump was asked at one of hisgaggles this weekend about it.He actually sort of said, well,I'm not sure that's how itworks, and yet then the official Trump campaign accountbacked it up and said actually, yes, this is why it works, this is what we have to do, and it's yet another way for thisadministration to try tocontrol the narrative and tryto make life difficult fortheir political foes."

The Atlantic's Foer expressed concern that the new rule hadn't drawn more attention than it did.

"This is an enormous scandal, andit would be normally theleading scandal on the frontpage of a newspaper, yet we'redealing with so many scandalssimultaneously, so many abuses of power at thesame time that this issomething that seems, you know,like a page-six story relativeto the rest of it," Foer said.

"This is about thethe state blunting any sort ofbastions of opposition thatwould slow down their abilityto do essentially whatever theywant, and the the state is essentially merging with theseother, trying to merge withthese other functions, and fora while it seemed like we werestanding on the precipice, but in reality, we've already fallen off the cliff."

- YouTubeyoutu.be