Gabrielle Cuccia Fired from OAN after Criticizing Pete Hegseth

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

A reporter for the right-wing network OAN who says she “unapologetically defiant” in her “support for President Trump” revealed she was fired after criticizing the Pentagon and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth.

According to a CNN report published Saturday, Gabrielle Cuccia — who served as OAN’s Pentagon correspondent — was asked to turn in her Pentagon badge on Thursday, and fired from the network the very next day. Earlier in the week, Cuccia penned a scathing criticism of Hegseth for limiting press access at the Pentagon. Here is an excerpt of her column posted to Substack on Tuesday:

“Effective immediately, journalists are no longer allowed to access the offices of the Secretary of Defense or the Joint Chiefs unless they’re escorted by Public Affairs staff. Outside a few “safe zones” — like the press office, the food court, or designated entrances — reporters now have to be formally walked, door-to-door, by authorized DoD personnel from the specific office or military branch they’re trying to reach.

Hegseth’s reasoning?

He claims it’s to “reduce the opportunity for in-person inadvertent or unauthorized disclosures.”

But let’s be honest — since January, the real leaks from the Pentagon haven’t come from the press. They’ve come from Hegseth’s own team and other senior officials.

I personally know reporters who’ve sent formal emails to Hegseth’s office requesting clarification on specific topics — and received radio silence in return.

Let’s call this what it is: limiting freedom of movement in the name of “national security.”

The Pentagon wants to paint a picture that journalists are freely roaming classified spaces, sneaking into SCIFs, and leaking top-secret information.

And that is simply not true.”

Cuccia — who went viral during a Newsmax hit in 2024 after she was cut off for claiming the 2020 election was rigged. takes pains to make clear she “will always be MAGA.” But she criticized the MAGA movement in its current form.

“Somewhere along the way, we as a collective decided — if anyone ever questioned a policy or person within the MAGA movement — that they weren’t MAGA enough,” Cuccia wrote. “That they were deep state, that they couldn’t be trusted, that they didn’t love America as much as we do, and that … to put it bluntly, they sucked. We’d kick ‘em out and remain skeptical for life and for theirs.”

Cuccia slammed Hegseth for his handling of Signalgate, writing:

“Our SecDef told us that it was Fake News.

That it was another Russia Hoax.

As a MAGA girl myself, I cannot stand when we take something super serious and legitimate – such as the Russia Hoax – and conflate everything and anything that is an inconvenient truth, throw in the towel and say, ‘Yep its just a Russia Hoax,’ and then proceed to call people losers and liars for reporting something that was unfortunately… true.

That’s like when the left calls anyone they disagree with, a Nazi.

It appeared Hegseth, although media trained, rejected the 101s of Public Relations.

All press can be good press. So long as you get ahead of it, own it, and then kill it — all while you and your team are on the same page.

But the messaging was a lie and no one got the memo.”

She also accused the Pentagon comms team of asking for her question in advance ahead of their one and only press briefing thus far in the four-and-a-half months since setting up shop.

“Did I mention that for the one and only press briefing conducted, Hegseth’s team reached out to me for what questions I would have so that they could call on me?” Cuccia wrote. “Yes that is true. At first I thought nothing of it and figured they wanted to be prepared for their very first briefing and be able to answer questions with as much info in response as possible. Unfortunately that was not the case and they responded by telling me to field my question about CECOT/Gitmo to the Department of State suggesting it wasn’t within the DoD’s purview — just days later, the SecDef did a trip to Gitmo.”

Cuccia was originally hired after the Defense Department gave the pro-Trump network OAN access to a workspace at the Pentagon which, for years, had been reserved for NBC News. That was one of many steps the Defense Department has taken to secure more friendly press coverage. On May 23, the Defense Department put out a memo which restricted reporters from accessing many areas at the Pentagon without an escort. It was that memo which served as the primary driver for Cuccia’s post. Days after publishing it, she says she is now out of a job.

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