Pete Hegseth’s nomination for defense secretary is looking increasingly tenuous as new revelations about the ex-Fox host’s history appear. A new TV appearance by his mother on Fox & Friends and claims that Trump told him to “keep fighting” haven’t exactly turned down the heat, either.
On Wednesday, Hegseth embarked on a bid to save what looks to be a sinking ship. He was back on Capitol Hill meeting with senators, and told reporters that he had no plans to withdraw his bid.
But almost certain to face unified Democratic resistance, Hegseth can only afford three defections from his own party. The question now: Will the same senators who tanked Matt Gaetz’s nomination with their “implacable” resistance to his selection be the ones to take Hegseth down?
To date, the former cable news talking head has already criticized two of them: Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins. The centrist Alaska and Maine senators were among the handful thought to have been unmovable against Gaetz. Hegseth, in comments on Fox News, derided them both as divorced from the realities of working Americans after they voted to protect the Affordable Care Act (otherwise known as Obamacare) from a Republican repeal effort.
Both senators have dismissed Hegseth’s criticism in statements made since his nomination was announced. Collins, however, said that she intended to look at character and judgment when deciding how to vote on such picks — a remark that hints at a possible lack of traction for Trump’s choice for Pentagon leader.
“If I look and see a pattern that causes me to think the person would not be a good leader and doesn’t have character or the impartiality — if it’s a judge, for example — that would concern me,” Collins told reporters.
On that front, Hegseth took a one-two punch this week.
A letter written by his mother in which she referred to him as an “abuser of women” for whom she had “no respect” drew gasps across the political media spectrum. Penelope Hegseth’s acidic denunciation of her son was published by The New York Times. In a follow-up letter she apologized; she did so as well in an interview with the Times, saying that her tone in the letter had been angry and emotional because of a particularly trying time in the family. But what she did not do was invalidate the content of the letter, wherein she said her son “lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his power and ego”.
Penelope Hegseth also appeared on Fox & Friends Wednesday morning in an apparent effort to paper over the damage caused by her letter to her son. In the interview, she claimed that being a TV host at Fox had prepared her son for the role of leading America’s armed services as secretary of defense.
“Being a TV news host prepares you for most things in a position like this: good communicator, think on your feet, take charge. Everybody should do a year with Fox!” she said.
Despite the backtracking, her original letter will generate further discussion around the allegations of sexual assault Hegseth faces from a woman who says he trapped her in a hotel room. He firmly denies these allegations, and says that the encounter was entirely consensual. Hegseth reached a financial settlement with the woman after authorities declined to charge him.
Hegseth’s relationship-busting child that he fathered with a producer who worked at Fox while he was still married to his second wife will also, no doubt, continue to generate discussions about his character. On Tuesday, Vanity Fair dropped the latest bomb — Hegseth admitted to five affairs during his first marriage alone, which itself lasted just four years.
President-elect Donald Trump has done little to defend Hegseth in recent days, a possible sign of where things are headed. Recent statements from the presidential transition team have instead centered around praise for Kash Patel, Trump’s pick to lead the FBI during his second term. Patel, a loyalist who has echoed calls to shut down the law enforcement agency entirely, represents another hard pill to swallow for many in the Senate Republican caucus.
At the bare minimum, Hegseth is headed for one of the most uncomfortable and public grillings by a Senate panel in recent memory. There’s little sign he’s doing anything to avert it — including meeting with some of the Republicans who will likely do the grilling.
But Hegseth’s alleged problematic treatment of women is now just one of his issues. The second is the fog of questions emerging around his use or abuse of alcohol, and his conduct in such situations.
His management of a major veterans’ group, Concerned Veterans for America, is now under the microscope. According to a whistleblower report obtained by The New Yorker, the group Hegseth once lead was forced to institute a “no drinking” policy at events in 2014 as a direct response to his behavior.
“I’ve seen him drunk so many times. I’ve seen him dragged away not a few times but multiple times. To have him at the Pentagon would be scary,” one CVA figure told The New Yorker.
Hegseth soon reversed the “no drinking” policy. Then, that same month, he was allegedly “so drunk [at an event that] he tried to get on the stage and dance with the strippers”. He has not addressed these claims, but they are, of course, damaging and come at an extremely inconvenient time.
As senators return to Capitol Hill from the Thanksgiving holiday, we can likely expect to see some real movement one way or the other on Hegseth in the immediate future. So far, he has said nothing about the letter from his mother or the claims about his drinking. Whether he can continue to remain silent — and what might happen if he speaks out — is something we’re likely to find out very soon.
