Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his Fox News colleagues while he was a host at the network, according to an NBC News report on Tuesday.
Citing 10 current and former Fox News employees, NBC News reported:
Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of “Fox & Friends Weekend,” which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set. ... Three current employees said that his drinking remained a concern up until Trump announced him as his choice to run the Pentagon, at which point Hegseth left Fox.
NBC News noted that none of the sources could recall an instance when Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he’d been drinking.
A spokesperson for the Trump transition team told NBC News: “These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening. As a decorated combat veteran, Pete has never done anything to jeopardize that, and he is treating his nomination as the most important deployment of his life.”
Timothy Parlatore, Hegseth’s lawyer, referred NBC News to the statement from the Trump transition spokesperson. Fox News did not respond to NBC News' requests for comment.
The NBC News report follows a New Yorker investigation published Monday about multiple allegations against Hegseth when he ran two separate nonprofit veterans’ groups, including that he was frequently drunk at public events and that he engaged in sexual improprieties.
One person who contributed to a whistleblower report about Hegseth's time at Concerned Veterans for America told The New Yorker anonymously: “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.”
Neither MSNBC nor NBC News has verified The New Yorker's reporting. When reached for comment, Parlatore sent The New Yorker a statement from an "adviser" of Hegseth's that called the claims "outlandish" and said they were leveled "by a petty a jealous disgruntled former associate of Mr. Hegseth's."
Hegseth has been under intense scrutiny over his past comments and alleged behavior, much of which resurfaced after Trump announced the former Fox News host as his pick to lead the Pentagon.
Hegseth was also accused of sexually assaulting a woman he met at a Republican women's conference in 2017. Police had investigated the incident, and no charges were filed against him. Monterey County, California, District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni in a statement last month said her office declined to file charges at the time because "no charges were supported by proof beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hegseth, however, has acknowledged paying his accuser an undisclosed sum “as part of a civil confidential settlement agreement,” though he has maintained that the encounter was consensual.
The New York Times reported last week that Hegseth's mother sent him an email in 2018 accusing him of being an "abuser of women" during his contentious divorce from his second wife. His mom, Penelope Hegseth, told the Times that she sent the email "in anger" and immediately sent him a follow-up email apologizing afterward.