The Daily Herold: July 16, 2025 – Pentagon Pressure, Transparency Wars, and The Epstein Divide

In this episode of The Daily Herold, Jon Herold sits down with journalist Gabby Cuccia for a candid conversation about government overreach and media suppression. Gabby recounts her experience as a Pentagon correspondent, where locked briefing doors, a refusal to hold press conferences, and the persistence of Obama-era holdovers sparked her investigation into a lack of transparency. Her reporting ultimately led to Pentagon officials twice contacting her employer to pressure them over her coverage, resulting in her firing. She describes how she was later offered her job back under conditions she refused, demanding instead that the Pentagon restore press access and hold an unscripted interview to answer the public’s questions.

The episode explores the tension between loyalty to a movement and the responsibility to hold power accountable. Other segments include analysis of Trump’s statements calling the Epstein story a hoax, the possibility of a special prosecutor to investigate Epstein-related evidence, plans to declassify documents showing the FBI ignored intelligence about Hillary Clinton’s emails, and the Senate’s vote on Trump’s spending rescissions. The show closes with reflections on whether the public can ever get full transparency in an age of narrative warfare.