Former Fox News host Pete Hegseth addressed concerns about his drinking during an interview with former colleague Megyn Kelly, pledging not to drink on the job if confirmed to oversee a large U.S. military institution.
Since President-elect Donald Trump nominated Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense, reporters have surfaced troubling allegations about his behavior both on and off the job. He had a history of alcohol abuse, and his binge drinking worried his colleagues at Fox News, according to a bombshell report in The New Yorker.
The embattled Hegseth said Wednesday that he intends to quit drinking if confirmed.
“I won’t drink at all. It’s not difficult because it’s not a problem for me,” he said on ‘The Megyn Kelly Show.’
“We need to make sure that when senators and troops and President Trump and everyone else call, 24/7, they can talk to Pete like they always did in Iraq and Afghanistan. ” He went on to add: “This is the biggest batch of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing this.”
Hegseth has been advertising this promise to some senators who will decide whether he is qualified to be secretary of defense.
“He took the job very seriously and volunteered to do it. I didn’t ask him,” Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) told reporters at the Capitol.
Hegseth claimed that Trump had told him earlier in the day that he still had the president-elect’s support and that he should keep fighting, despite reports that Trump was considering replacing him with Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R).
The interview with Kelly addressed the various accusations that have plagued Hegseth over the past three weeks.
Asked if he wanted to talk about the New York Times publishing an email in 2018 in which his mother accused him of being an “abuser of women,” Hegseth said, “I feel for my mom.”
“Over the next few days we tried to get through it,” he said.
Penelope Hegseth’s email came during her son’s second divorce. She told the Times she quickly apologized for what she wrote in anger.
“Get help and take an honest look at yourself,” Penelope Hegseth told her son in 2018. “We need to wake up to years of abuse of women (dishonesty, co-sleeping, betrayal, degradation, contempt).” ”
Kelly agreed with Hegseth that it was “too mean-spirited” for The New York Times to publish the message.
Penelope Hegseth later went on the offensive on her son’s behalf, appearing on “Fox & Friends” early Wednesday morning to defend him and slam the media. She directly appealed to “female senators” not to believe what the news media says.
Hegseth also addressed a 2017 police report accusing her of sexual assault at the Republican Women’s Conference. The accusation reportedly took Trump’s transition team by surprise. The woman told police she confronted Hegseth, the event’s keynote speaker, because she felt he disrespected women.
Hegseth admitted to paying the woman an undisclosed amount to keep quiet about the alleged assault and told Kelly he thought that was the best course of action.
“I did it to protect my wife, I did it to protect my family, I did it to protect my job, and that was a negotiation,” he said.
Hegseth claimed the encounter in the California hotel room was consensual and falsely told police that he had absolved him of wrongdoing. This issue was simply removed without further investigation.
He also defended his work leading two veterans advocacy groups after The New Yorker reported that he grossly mismanaged his funds and spent lavishly on parties until he was forced out.
Hegseth told Kelly, “There wasn’t a penny that was spent that we weren’t proud of spending for the cause.” He complained that reporters did not want to talk to people who could relate positive experiences working with him.
“I wasn’t fired. “I wasn’t kicked out,” he said.
Kelly appeared to sympathize with Hegseth and threw media coverage of the man who could command the world’s most powerful military into an organized smear campaign.
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“All I can think about is how do we get people to volunteer for public service?” Kelly said at one point. “They are trying to destroy you now, not just in this role, but in every profession. If this doesn’t work out, everything from going back to Fox to going into the private sector. Well, ‘He’s an alcoholic, a womanizer, a rapist, and a money mismanager.’ Everything they can heap on you, they’re heaping on you.”
Regarding this, Hegseth said, “The future is in God’s hands.”
“I think greatness awaits,” Kelly told Hegseth.
Arthur Delaney contributed to this report.
