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The Nation: Pete Hegseth, Belligerent Drunk, May Be Too Much Even for Trump
The Nation - (archived: https://archive.ph/WwJvg ) Pete Hegseth, Belligerent Drunk, May Be Too Much Even for Trump
The Fox News pundit—an alleged sexual assaulter with a drinking problem—has moved into Matt Gaetz territory.
Chris Lehmann
Politics / December 4, 2024
The tabloid drama in the rogues’ gallery of prospective Trump cabinet appointments continues: Just over a week since Matt Gaetz’s wild downward ride from attorney-general designate to Cameo hustler, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, may be next down the funhouse slide.
Hegseth, a Fox News host, was one of Trump’s first “shock and awe” nominees to the president-elect’s incoming cabinet. He had quickly forfeited posts atop two veterans’ nonprofit groups amid charges of financial mismanagement, excessive drinking, and sexual misconduct, according to an investigation by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. From that inauspicious start in the military advocacy world, he landed his Fox gig, where he just as rapidly took up the same conduct, engineering a payoff and a nondisclosure agreement from a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her at a right-wing conference in California where Hegseth was a featured speaker. The police complaint over the incident makes for a bracing read.
The complainant describes the sensation of awakening in Hegseth’s hotel room, which she didn’t recognize, in a disoriented state, suspecting that she had been drugged; she also recalls repeatedly saying “no” as Hegseth reportedly moved in on her for sex, and requested a rape test after the encounter. Hegseth denies the account and says the sex was consensual; his lawyer says he reached the financial settlement solely to protect his Fox gig. Still, Hegseth manages to stand out, even in Trumpland, as the only cabinet nominee denounced as “an abuser of women” by his own mother.
The Trump White House was reportedly blindsided by the assault charges, but continued to promote Hegseth’s nomination and dispatched him to meet with senators on Capitol Hill to prepare for his confirmation hearings. After all, the president-elect is a self-confessed and court-certified sexual assaulter, and presumably expects prospective members of his cabinet to bluff through these scandals as he has.
What appears to have tipped Hegseth’s nomination into Gaetz territory is an NBC report documenting a pattern of excessive on-the-job drinking at Fox—something that is likely a far brighter red flag to Trump, a lifetime teetotaler, than reports of brutal sexual predation. Fox employees spoke about Hegseth arriving just minutes before his early morning show went on the air, while others described the need to “babysit” the hard-partying Hegseth. One former Fox hand said, “We’d have to call him to make sure he didn’t oversleep, because we knew he’d be out partying the night before”; another flatly said, “He should not be secretary of defense. His drinking should be disqualifying.”
That these latest damning leaks are coming from the inner sanctum of Fox is another major strike against Hegseth’s nomination: Trump’s executive-branch picks reflect in no small part the president-elect’s own cable viewing tastes, with figures such as Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Mehmet Oz logging many pundit hits on the right-wing two-minute hate delivery system. The official count of former Fox News personalities slated to serve in the second Trump administration is now up to 10. Hegseth’s being outed as both a belligerent drunk and an unprofessional Fox on-air personality is a likely bridge too far for Trump.
/snip
The Fox News pundit—an alleged sexual assaulter with a drinking problem—has moved into Matt Gaetz territory.
Chris Lehmann
Politics / December 4, 2024
The tabloid drama in the rogues’ gallery of prospective Trump cabinet appointments continues: Just over a week since Matt Gaetz’s wild downward ride from attorney-general designate to Cameo hustler, Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Defense, may be next down the funhouse slide.
Hegseth, a Fox News host, was one of Trump’s first “shock and awe” nominees to the president-elect’s incoming cabinet. He had quickly forfeited posts atop two veterans’ nonprofit groups amid charges of financial mismanagement, excessive drinking, and sexual misconduct, according to an investigation by The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer. From that inauspicious start in the military advocacy world, he landed his Fox gig, where he just as rapidly took up the same conduct, engineering a payoff and a nondisclosure agreement from a woman who alleged he sexually assaulted her at a right-wing conference in California where Hegseth was a featured speaker. The police complaint over the incident makes for a bracing read.
The complainant describes the sensation of awakening in Hegseth’s hotel room, which she didn’t recognize, in a disoriented state, suspecting that she had been drugged; she also recalls repeatedly saying “no” as Hegseth reportedly moved in on her for sex, and requested a rape test after the encounter. Hegseth denies the account and says the sex was consensual; his lawyer says he reached the financial settlement solely to protect his Fox gig. Still, Hegseth manages to stand out, even in Trumpland, as the only cabinet nominee denounced as “an abuser of women” by his own mother.
The Trump White House was reportedly blindsided by the assault charges, but continued to promote Hegseth’s nomination and dispatched him to meet with senators on Capitol Hill to prepare for his confirmation hearings. After all, the president-elect is a self-confessed and court-certified sexual assaulter, and presumably expects prospective members of his cabinet to bluff through these scandals as he has.
What appears to have tipped Hegseth’s nomination into Gaetz territory is an NBC report documenting a pattern of excessive on-the-job drinking at Fox—something that is likely a far brighter red flag to Trump, a lifetime teetotaler, than reports of brutal sexual predation. Fox employees spoke about Hegseth arriving just minutes before his early morning show went on the air, while others described the need to “babysit” the hard-partying Hegseth. One former Fox hand said, “We’d have to call him to make sure he didn’t oversleep, because we knew he’d be out partying the night before”; another flatly said, “He should not be secretary of defense. His drinking should be disqualifying.”
That these latest damning leaks are coming from the inner sanctum of Fox is another major strike against Hegseth’s nomination: Trump’s executive-branch picks reflect in no small part the president-elect’s own cable viewing tastes, with figures such as Tulsi Gabbard, Vivek Ramaswamy, and Mehmet Oz logging many pundit hits on the right-wing two-minute hate delivery system. The official count of former Fox News personalities slated to serve in the second Trump administration is now up to 10. Hegseth’s being outed as both a belligerent drunk and an unprofessional Fox on-air personality is a likely bridge too far for Trump.
/snip