Backed off from what??
Wiki isn’t a preferred source, but one can get the gist where Hastings was headed. ...
wiki:
In January 2012, Hastings published The Operators, a book that details his travels with General Stanley McChrystal and his team in April 2010. It included extensive quotations from over 20 hours of audio recordings of McChrystal and his inner circle. A close read of the book suggests that McChrystal himself told Hastings that Obama was “intimidated and uncomfortable” the first time the president met him. The Daily Beast called it a “book of great consequence...The Operators seems destined to join the pantheon of great GWOT literature”.[44] The Wall Street Journal slammed the book, but the reviewer was a military consultant who had worked for both McChrystal and General Petraeus, which the Journal failed to disclose.[45]
In June 2012, Hastings wrote an article about the struggles of Private First Class Bowe Bergdahl, who was captured by the Taliban when he walked off his Army base in Afghanistan in 2009 after being disillusioned with the war.[50]
In an interview with MSNBC anchor Alex Wagner, Hastings discussed his article and said, “There are elements within the Pentagon who don’t want to make the trade for Bowe Bergdahl”.[51]
His widow Elise Jordan said his final story was a profile of CIA Director John O. Brennan.[73] The FBI released a statement denying that Hastings was being investigated.[60]
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In May 2013, Hastings denounced President Barack Obama’s foreign policy, and accused MSNBC contributor Perry Bacon, Jr., of being a “stenographer” for the White House.[52]