In the wake of last weekend’s U.S. military action in Venezuela that resulted in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the Trump administration delivered an unusual message of gratitude to members of the news media.
Rubio credited news organizations that had learned in advance about Saturday’s strike with not putting the mission in jeopardy by publicly reporting on it before it happened, and he made the remarks on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday, according to The Associated Press. He said the Republican administration withheld information about the mission from Congress ahead of time because “it will leak. It’s as simple as that,” while also saying operational security was the primary reason.
Rubio also pointed to the handling of leaks by outlets that were already aware. “Frankly, a number of media outlets had gotten leaks that this was coming and held it for that very reason,” Rubio said. “And we thank them for doing that or lives could have been lost. American lives.”
The thank-you landed in a broader debate about press access and Pentagon reporting rules. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has cited a mistrust of journalists’ ability to responsibly handle sensitive information as one of the chief reasons for imposing restrictive new press rules on Pentagon reporters, the AP reported. The Times last month filed a lawsuit seeking to overturn the rules, and the AP said most mainstream news organizations have left posts in the Pentagon rather than agree to Hegseth’s policy.
Rubio’s remarks contrasted with the administration’s posture toward media access, but they reflected how U.S. officials weigh whether advance publicity could endanger personnel. In an account tied to communications between the administration and news organizations, Semafor reported that The New York Times and The Washington Post learned of the raid in advance and held off reporting to avoid endangering U.S. military personnel. Representatives for both outlets declined to comment to the AP on Monday.
Dana Priest, a longtime national security reporter at The Washington Post who now teaches at the University of Maryland, said withholding information on a planned mission for that reason is routine for news organizations. Priest said that even after the fact, the Post has asked government authorities about whether revealing certain details could endanger people, according to the AP.
The AP also described an example from Jeffrey Goldberg’s reporting involving Hegseth. Priest said Goldberg was inadvertently included in a text chain last spring where Hegseth revealed information about a military attack in Yemen, and that Goldberg did not report on the events until well after U.S. personnel was out of danger and the information had been thoroughly checked out.
In Venezuela, most Americans learned about the attack in the predawn hours of Saturday after President Donald Trump announced completion of the operation on his Truth Social platform. The AP reported that while it did not have advance word that the operation would happen, its journalists in Venezuela heard and observed explosions and filed reporting on the explosions more than two hours before Trump’s announcement, with the U.S. involvement not clarified until Trump’s post.
Rubio’s comments and the reaction from media organizations also echoed an established history of editors weighing sensitive advance knowledge against potential operational consequences. The AP reported that generations ago, President John F. Kennedy persuaded editors at The Times not to report when it learned in advance of a U.S.-backed attack by Cuban exiles on Fidel Castro’s forces at the Bay of Pigs. The AP said Bill Keller later stated that Kennedy expressed regret the newspaper had not reported what it had known because it could have prevented a fiasco.
In the current dispute over Pentagon press rules, Barbara Starr, a former CNN defense correspondent, said the media can act responsibly to protect troops’ lives while also making efforts to cover the news outside of Hegseth’s control. Priest said that in a country with freedom of the press, the ultimate decision on whether to report information that could put lives or a mission in danger lies with the news organization.
Priest said reporters will continue to focus on disclosure responsibilities even as the Trump administration seeks to constrain what Pentagon reporters can do and how they can handle sensitive information. “The reporters are not going to be deterred by a ridiculously broad censorship edict by the Trump administration,” Priest said, adding: “Their mission is not to curry favor with the Trump administration. It’s to report information to the public.”