Every major news outlet at the Pentagon turns in their badges rather than sign the new press rules.

The Pentagon, which is the Department of War now, instituted a new set of rules for the press. The rules, in summary: in order to keep your press badge, you have to sign a paper saying you understand the new rules. You do not have to agree with the rules. You do have to sign a paper saying you understand them.

The deadline was Wednesday. The list of outlets that signed: One America News.

The list of outlets that did not sign, and turned in their badges, and walked out of the Pentagon press room with their cardboard boxes: ABC News, CBS News, NBC News, CNN, Fox News, the Associated Press, the New York Times, the Washington Post, NPR, Reuters, Axios, Newsmax, the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, and many more I am leaving off because I will run out of column inches.

Hon. That is the entire press corps, across the political spectrum, with the exception of one network the rest of the trade does not consider an actual newsroom. They walked out together. That does not happen. That has never happened. Fox and the New York Times agree on the news the same way I agree with my mother-in-law on the brisket.

The President said, on camera, the day before the deadline, “It bothers me to have soldiers and even, you know, high-ranking generals walking around with you guys on their sleeve.” The “you guys” is the press. He did not like reporters being in the same building as the generals.

You ever notice how the people who say they want a strong military always seem to be uncomfortable with the part of the strong military where it is run in public, with reporters watching, in a country that decided in 1791 that this was important.

The Pentagon press room is a hallway. The hallway has been there since 1949. The reporters have rotated. The hallway has not. The hallway, this week, is empty.

The argument from the Department of War is that the rules are reasonable, that the journalists are overreacting, that nothing is being suppressed. That is the argument every government has made every time it has tried to put a permission slip in front of every newsroom in the country.

The journalists turned in the badges. The badges are at the front desk. The hallway is dark.

That ought to concern you.