Pete Hegseth, President Donald Trump’s pick as Secretary of Defense, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke to NBC News.
Two of those people said that during Hegseth’s time as co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him more than a dozen times before he came on air. Those same two people, plus one other, said he appeared on television during his time there after hearing him talk about his hangover while getting ready or on set.
One of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him last month and heard him complain this fall that he was hungover.
None of the sources NBC News spoke to could recall an instance in which Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he had been drinking.
“Everyone would talk about it behind the scenes before he went on the air,” said one of the former Fox employees.
On Sunday night, the New Yorker raised concerns about Hegseth’s drinking at two jobs he held at veterans’ nonprofits before joining Fox. “A previously undisclosed whistleblower report on Hegseth’s tenure as president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 to 2016, describes him as repeatedly getting drunk while acting in his official capacity – to the point that he had to be removed from the organization’s control . events,” the magazine said.
According to the New Yorker, Tim Parlatore, an attorney for Hegseth, responded: “We are not going to comment on outlandish claims laundered through The New Yorker by a petty and jealous, disgruntled former employee of Mr. Hegseth. If you’re taking your first stab at real journalism, please contact us.”
Pete Hegseth pauses to talk to reporters after a series of meetings with senators in the Russell Senate Office Building on Capitol Hill on Nov. 21, 2024.
This account of Hegseth’s time at Fox News is based on NBC News interviews with three current and seven former Fox employees, all of whom asked not to be named for fear of retaliation.
Three current employees said his drinking remained a problem until Trump announced him as his choice to lead the Pentagon, after which Hegseth left Fox.
“He’s such a charming guy, but he acted like the rules didn’t apply to him,” said one of the former employees.
A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team said: “These disgusting allegations are completely baseless and false, and anyone spreading these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening. As a decorated combat veteran, Pete has never done anything to compromise that, and he considers his appointment the most important commitment of his life.
Parlatore, Hegseth’s attorney, referred NBC to the statement from Trump’s transition spokesman. Fox News did not respond to requests for comment.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin speaks in Kiev, Ukraine, on October 21.
24 hour tasks
The former colleagues’ descriptions of Hegseth’s conduct during his tenure at Fox News raise questions about his ability to perform the 24-hour duties involved in running the Pentagon and its 3 million civilian and military employees.
A Secretary of Defense typically works throughout the day and may have to respond to a crisis that suddenly arises overnight or over the weekend.
In February 2023, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, while passing through Manila on the type of trip that often requires socializing with other senior officials, was awakened at 3 a.m. local time to a call about a Chinese spy balloon flying over the continental U.S. flew.
Similarly, the October 7, 2023 attack in Israel began around midnight Eastern Time.
And the Defense Department is responsible for protecting U.S. cities and infrastructure from potential aerial threats, similar to the September 11 attacks. At any time, day or night, the Secretary of Defense can be called upon to decide whether to shoot down a civilian aircraft. Either way, the wrong decision could mean the death of innocent people.
“For national security reasons, I really hope he has stopped drinking,” one of the former Fox employees said.
“He shouldn’t be secretary of defense,” said another former Fox employee. “His drinking should be disqualifying.”
In 1989, the Senate rejected then-President George H. W. Bush’s nominee for secretary of defense, former Sen. John Tower, R-Texas, in part because of concerns about Tower’s drinking history.
As co-host, Hegseth had to be early to work on the weekend. For a show that started at 6:00 a.m. ET, his female co-hosts came in around 4:00 a.m. to get ready and get their hair and makeup done; Male co-hosts typically arrived around 5 or 5:15 a.m., 45 minutes before they aired, three sources said.
One current and two former Fox employees said they felt like they had to “babysit” Hegseth because of his drinking and late nights. “We had to call him to make sure he hadn’t overslept because we knew he was partying the night before,” one of them said. Another said: ‘Morning TV is stressful, and more often than not Pete made it even more stressful.’
According to these three sources, Hegseth sometimes arrived only twenty minutes or less before the show started, putting pressure on his colleagues. They said that Hegseth’s makeup sometimes had to be done while he was on set because his colleagues had so little time due to his late arrival. The sources could not say whether his lateness was solely due to drinking.
The whistleblower report detailed in the New Yorker alleged repeated instances in which Hegseth drank heavily at work events, including a team outing to a Louisiana strip club in November 2014, during which he became so intoxicated that he “had to be restrained” from climbing onto the stage . to dance with the strippers.
Hegseth also drank heavily at some social events with Fox News colleagues, according to two former employees, with one of the former colleagues saying he would “get absolutely drunk.”
Last month, Monterey California police released documents from a 2017 investigation into an allegation that Hegseth sexually assaulted a woman in a hotel room after a Republican women’s convention. The accuser, identified in records as “Jane Doe,” thought someone might have put something in her drink.
Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing and no charges have ever been filed against him.
“This police report confirms what I have been saying all along,” Hegseth’s attorney Parlatore told NBC News last month. “The incident was fully investigated and police ruled the allegation was false. Therefore, no charges were filed.”
Hegseth also confirmed that he paid the woman an undisclosed settlement. Parlatore previously told NBC News that Hegseth “ultimately decided to settle for a significantly reduced amount” at the “height of the MeToo movement.” Parlatore also said his client was “innocent collateral damage in a lie that the complainant clung to to keep her marriage intact.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
