Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell announced on social media that on the way back to the U.S. from NATO’s Defense Ministers meeting, Hegseth’s "plane made an unscheduled landing in the United Kingdom due to a crack in the aircraft windshield."

NPR’s Tom Bowman, who has covered the Pentagon for 28 years, publicly surrendered his own credentials in protest of the “unprecedented” policy rather than abide by the restrictions. The Pentagon’s own spokespeople rarely brief the press anyway, Bowman noted in an op-ed: