Valid Concerns are Not Anonymous Slander - Pete Hegseth's Confirmation is the First Performance in Trump's Cabinet Confirmation Clown Show

Fox News

As a second Trump inauguration looms over us like the calm before a hurricane, Congress has begun its vetting of the incoming president's cabinet picks. Yesterday, Fox and Friends host Pete Hegseth was questioned before almost certainly being handed the Secretary of Defense position. Yes, the same Pete Hegseth who was disqualified from working at President Joe Biden's inauguration because of his White Supremacist tattoos.

Allegations of disregard for the laws of war, financial mismanagement, racist and sexist remarks about men and women in uniform, rampant alcohol abuse, and several accusations of sexual misconduct have made Hegseth a truly baffling pick for Secretary of Defense.

But no Republicans have said they would oppose Hegseth, and none asked any hard questions about his personal conduct on Tuesday. Typical.

He's Unqualified and Should be Disqualified

Here's a list of things from the hearing that should not only disqualify this man from being the Secretary of Defense but also from polite society as a whole. Feel free to use this as a reference point when explaining why he's an unskilled, unqualified DEI hire.

Pete's Missteps

• Ten current and former Fox employees say Pete Hegseth "drank in ways that concerned his co-workers" with some saying he frequently showed up to the studio hungover ahead of his early morning TV duties

• Claims he was "completely cleared” of allegations of sexual assault when in reality he paid the woman who accused you of raping her a sum of money to make sure that she did not file a complaint.

• Getting drunk at a work event at a bar and chanting ‘Kill all Muslims.’

• Took co-workers to a strip club, got incredibly drunk, tried to dance with strippers, and had to be held offstage.

• Suggested women should not serve in combat roles, arguing that "over human history, men in those positions are more capable"

• Multiple instances of infidelity, including fathering a child outside of his marriage with the woman who would become his third wife

• After his nomination he never revealed that he had been accused of assault, the criminal complaint, the criminal investigation, the out-of-court settlement, or the cash payment.”

• A whistleblower report from Hegseth’s tenure as CEO of Concerned Veterans for America, a nonprofit group, detailed excessive drinking and even an instance of Hegseth’s co-workers having to physically restrain him.

Important Questions Pete Hegseth Refused to Answer

• Whether domestic abuse is a disqualifying factor for the job

• If he’d resign from the Secretary of Defense position if he reneged on a drinking pledge

• "Have you ever made unwanted requests for sexual favors or committed any verbal or physical harassment or assault of a sexual nature?”

• “Have you ever faced discipline or entered into a settlement related to this kind of conduct?” (He lied in his non-answer btw)

• Wouldn't commit to not going into the private sector, saying: "I'm not a general, senator".

• If he would comply with an order by Donald Trump to seize Greenland, a Danish territory, or an order to take over the Panama Canal.

• Hegseth describes being in the National Guard during a Black Lives Matter protest but won't say if he would follow an order to shoot protesters in the leg.

It seems like none of this matters to Republicans, seeing as Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) defended Hegseth by arguing that senators, too, are sometimes drunk on the job. The Oklahoma senator also mentions that other senators cheat on their wives, "it's so ridiculous that you guys hold yourself to these high standards and you have a plank in your eye".....What kind of defense is that?!

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said it best: "If today's hearing is a sense of what's to come, we are deeply concerned."