USA Today just ran an exposé about how our troops deployed to the Middle East are eating sad little trays of shredded mystery meat and a single tortilla. They tracked down a Marine’s father — a guy named Dan F. — who was alarmed when his daughter on the USS Tripoli sent him a photo of what passed for lunch aboard a Navy vessel. One scoop of meat. One tortilla. Two-thirds of the tray empty. Another photo from the USS Abraham Lincoln showed boiled carrots, a dry meat patty, and what can only be described as a gray slab of something that used to be alive.
Heartbreaking stuff. Somebody should do something about it. Maybe — and stay with me here — somebody should buy those troops a steak dinner.
Oh wait. Somebody DID.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth literally bought steak and lobster for the troops a few weeks ago, and these same media outlets lost their minds over it. USA Today — the SAME publication now wringing its hands about sad food trays — was part of the chorus screaming that Hegseth was being reckless, showboating, wasting resources, whatever the complaint du jour was that week.
So we’ve now reached the point where feeding troops steak is a scandal AND not feeding troops steak is also a scandal. If Hegseth had sent them medium-rare ribeyes with a side of garlic butter, USA Today would’ve run a piece about cholesterol levels in the military. If he’d sent salads, they’d have written about how he’s starving our warriors. If he’d personally flown to the USS Tripoli and grilled burgers on the flight deck, the headline would’ve been about carbon emissions.
This is what we call the “heads I win, tails you lose” school of journalism. And we’ve all been watching it play out for years now. The media doesn’t cover Pete Hegseth — or anyone in the Trump administration — to inform you. They cover them to damage them. The topic is irrelevant. The conclusion was written before the story was assigned.
Remember, this is the same media ecosystem that spent four years telling us the border was secure while millions of people walked across it. The same outlets that told us inflation was “transitory” while your grocery bill doubled. The same reporters who called parents at school board meetings “domestic terrorists” and then acted shocked when those parents voted Republican.
They don’t have principles. They have targets.
Hegseth’s target has been on his back since the day Trump nominated him. The defense establishment hated him because he wasn’t one of them — he’s a combat veteran who actually served, not a Beltway creature who spent thirty years pushing paper at the Pentagon. The media hated him because he came from Fox News. And the combination of those two things means that literally anything he does will be framed as wrong.
Bought steak for the troops? He’s an irresponsible showboat.
Troops eating garbage food on deployment? Why isn’t the Defense Secretary doing something about it?
Both of these stories ran within WEEKS of each other. From the same outlet. And nobody in the newsroom apparently looked up from their laptops long enough to notice the contradiction. Or — more likely — they noticed and didn’t care, because the point was never the food.
The point was never the steak. The point was never the sad tortilla on the USS Tripoli. The point is that Pete Hegseth works for Donald Trump, and anything connected to Trump must be framed as bad. Full stop. That’s the editorial policy. That’s been the editorial policy since 2015.
And here’s what really gets me — while these reporters are playing their little gotcha games with troop meals, actual service members are deployed in the Middle East dealing with a real situation involving Iran. These are real people, on real ships, doing real work that matters. And the best our legacy media can do is use them as props in a narrative game designed to make one guy look bad.
Our troops deserve better food AND better journalism. They’re currently getting neither.
But at least Hegseth tried to get them the steak. USA Today just tried to get clicks.
The Office of the Chief of Naval Operations denied there were food issues. Hegseth denied there were food issues. And maybe the photos Dan F. received from his daughter were from a bad day — every chow hall has them. But you know what would’ve been an honest piece of journalism? “Defense Secretary buys troops steak, and here’s why the military food system needs that kind of attention.” That’s a story that actually helps service members.
Instead, we got two contradictory hit pieces in the span of a month. Because that’s what American journalism is now — a machine that produces whatever narrative damages the right people on the right day, and memory-holes everything it said yesterday.
Pick a lane, USA Today. Or just admit you don’t have one.