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Dec 3, 2024

Even Right-Wingers Are Growing Wary Of Pete Hegseth's List Of Scandals

As more stories of Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth's misbehavior get unearthed, conservatives are starting to turn on supporting him.
  • 8 minutes
I think the volume of some of the personal attacks on some of your some of the nominees are stunning, including our buddy Pete Hegseth, who wrote a book about the Pentagon, served 20 years in the military. He's been decorated, chose the infantry after Ivy League education. [00:00:16] Was badly on the job. How did you find that response? Well, Trump's defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, or at least who he's nominating for defense secretary, is getting some mixed reviews at his place of work. Fox news, you just witnessed, Brian Kilmeade, for instance, defending him. [00:00:36] But Fox also aired that uncomfortable interaction that he had with a reporter, essentially confronting him about some of his misconduct on the job when he was the head of the CVA. And he's about to have a sit down interview with Fox to address [00:00:55] some of these allegations, I assume. But we haven't gotten to Ann Colter, who's still around. She's still a thing. And she all of a sudden decided to share her own personal views on Pete Hegseth. So look, over the holiday weekend, there were a slew of additional [00:01:11] damning reports surrounding Hegseth. There was, for instance, an exposé that we covered on the show. It was reported originally in The New Yorker, and it had all these details about his drunken behavior, alleged sexism, and other inappropriate behavior while he was heading the CVA. [00:01:28] And then there was also the email that his mom sent him about his abusive behavior toward women. And so in the email that was obtained by The New York Times, his mother, Penelope, wrote, on behalf of all the women, and I know it's many you have abused in some way. [00:01:44] I say, get some help and take an honest look at yourself. I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. And so I'm going to go ahead and guess that this is the kind of reporting that inspired Ann Colter, of all people who's very much right wing [00:02:03] to speak out against Pete Hegseth. So without further ado, here she is talking about how she has a problem with his character. In all of this talk about about whether whether Pete Hegseth is an abuser of women. [00:02:22] It just no one even mentioned that he is a serial adulterer. Are we a society that doesn't care about adultery anymore? I mean, it's one thing to take Heather MacDonald's position and say, no, I don't. I don't care if if he shot his dog. Oh, that's Kristi Noem. [00:02:39] I don't care what he did, as long as he's good on policy. I don't think those two are possible to go together, but that's my argument. But adultery hasn't even been mentioned. [00:02:54] So adultery was mentioned by a Fox News contributor of all people. And, you know, she went on Fox News and just simply said, look, the military like, frowns on infidelity. And he was in the military when he cheated on his wife, and then he [00:03:11] ended up cheating on his second wife. And like, he's had some issues for sure. But I don't know if I agree that cheating on your partner is an offense worthy of excluding you from a government role. [00:03:28] You get what I'm saying. Like, I don't like it and I would kill my husband, but like, you get what I'm saying? I don't know that any of these cats would be able to be in government if this were to exclude people. Infidelity, like. I mean, come on with that. [00:03:45] And for folks that don't realize this because Ann Colter is not really a thing anymore, she's been kind of critical of Donald Trump. No, she's. Been super critical, but for the wrong reasons. Yeah, basically, like he wasn't hawkish enough on immigration [00:04:02] when he got in there. He didn't build the wall like three football fields. High basically is what she's pissed about. And so like, you know, she's taking this tact of like, being critical of things that she doesn't like. Because of that. So, you know, shout outs to her for being consistent, I guess, [00:04:20] or whatever we're calling this. But, you know, I just I just don't think this is going to derail him ultimately, especially after they got gates up out of there, I think Trump might actually put his foot down and be like, all right, guys. Like, listen, we get it. [00:04:35] We we you got your gates scalped. But like, the rest of my stuff has to go. You know, at the end of the day, I do have a mandate to to carry out for the American people here. Okay. But look, I don't think that Trump is necessarily even thinking about this. [00:04:53] So put put Trump aside. Let's talk about our own thoughts. Because look, US foreign policy has garnered quite a few enemies abroad. Okay. What we are aiding and abetting in the Middle East right now, as we speak, [00:05:08] obviously, is creating a lot of enemies, not just against Israel, but against the country arming Israel. And that's the United States defense secretary is no small role. That is a serious role. I don't know if it makes sense to have someone who seems to have some issues. [00:05:27] And I'm not talking about the infidelity. I'm talking about, you know, like he was the head of the CVA and homeboy was like in a drunken stupor trying to dance with strippers on a stage which with his staff, with his staff, with the people working for him. [00:05:43] Okay. Like, that's that shows a lack of judgment, a lack of professionalism, a lack of self-control that worries me. That really does worry me. And like, look, I get that. I'm not going to love anyone that Trump picks, but I like at least [00:06:01] someone who doesn't have these issues. Maybe. Right? Yeah, I think I think what you're speaking is to somebody who will understand the gravity of the office of the job and behave accordingly. So. And because this guy has all of these things in his past [00:06:18] that shows like he's not always taking things as serious as possible. You never know, right? Like this guy's it seems like. No. Right. This guy served in the military himself. You would think that, like, he would take this job really serious. [00:06:34] Especially when you consider that. Probably pretty soon here, our own freaking troops are going to end up over there fighting on behalf of these other freaking countries. And so you would hope that he could be smart in that job, like me personally, like the idea that, like, [00:06:50] just because this guy was on Fox News and he was like, praising Trump, like, I think that's a terrible way to pick a candidate. Yes. For this position, like, obviously that that feels wrongheaded. But I will say this like, I'm never overly impressed by the, [00:07:08] you know, the run of the mill generals that they tend to have in these jobs. It's not like those guys end up being so incredible in these freaking jobs, right? Like, I totally agree, McMaster and all these other cats that were around Trump, [00:07:23] the Boltons and all these other crazy, fiendish, hawkish people. So yeah, this guy seems to be a mess in his social life. Whereas man, the people from before were just horrible on the merits and on the policy. Yeah. I mean, look, that's a good point. And I've got no love for those generals either. [00:07:40] But they did strike me as the type of people who would adult when they needed to adult. And I'm worried about Pete Hegseth, not because Pete Hegseth, by the way, is pretty damn hawkish himself. So yeah. Hell yeah. You you've got that. In addition to his lack of self-control at a time when, again, [00:08:01] we are involved in all these wars abroad and we've created all these enemies, like, I am worried about national security to some extent, like for the first time ever. And so just something to keep in mind and we'll see how the story develops. And, you know, he's going to have this sit down interview with Fox News. [00:08:16] We'll see how that plays out as well.