Pete Hegseth and his fellow Republicans can’t decide if the abuse allegations against him are real or “fake news.”
At the very top of the Fox News host’s hearing to be Donald Trump’s defense secretary, both Hegseth and his GOP defenders spun out two competing narratives: The stories about him aren’t true, but if the evidence makes the stories undeniable, it doesn’t matter, because he’s a changed man. Armed Services Committee chair Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., kicked off the have-it-both-ways strategy in his introductory remarks to Hegseth’s confirmation hearing Tuesday by acknowledging that “Mr. Hegseth has admitted to falling short” while insisting “the accusations leveled at Mr. Hegseth have come from anonymous sources.”
Hegseth himself picked up the ball with a conspiracy theory that he was the victim of a “coordinated smear campaign orchestrated in the media,” adding, “Our leftwing media in America today sadly doesn’t care about the truth.” Throughout the hearing, he kept harping on the word “anonymous,” implying that the press made up the stories.
But, of course, the accusations against Hegseth aren’t anonymous, and they certainly aren’t fabricated by journalists. The woman who called the police in 2017, accusing Hegseth of rape, did so under her real name. The police have confirmed that the report is real. Her name has been redacted by the press, as is customary for sensitive crimes, but she was certainly not anonymous. The whistleblower report filed in 2015, which detailed alcohol abuse and sexual harassment, wasn’t anonymous, either. As Jane Mayer of the New Yorker writes, it was compiled by several former members of Concerned Veterans for America, which he had been president of, and sent to senior management. It resulted in Hegseth being pressured to resign.
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As Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va. said, “We have seen records with names attached to all of these, including the name of your own mother.” He was referring to a 2018 email sent to Hegseth from his mother, where she called him an “abuser of women” and denounced the way he cheated on and treated his first two wives. She has since tried to walk it back, but without actually denying any of the details, which have been corroborated by multiple other sources by reporters.
Hegseth’s parrot-like repetition of the word “anonymous” shows he and Trump believe that, as long as more details don’t come to light, they can simply deny the piles of journalistically obtained evidence. Helping them are the FBI agents tasked with the “background check” that is unworthy of the name. As the New York Times documented Tuesday morning, the supposed report “omitted key details on major allegations against him, in part because it did not include interviews with critical witnesses.” Women especially were ignored, with neither the rape accuser nor Hegseth’s ex-wives receiving interviews. Hegseth’s second wife reportedly “made multiple attempts to contact the bureau for a more substantive discussion — but her calls were not returned last week.”
To give a sense of how serious this omission is, standard FBI background checks don’t only include family and friends, but neighbors and casual acquaintances. I once had to sit through a 15-minute FBI interview because my upstairs neighbor in New York City — someone I had only spoken to in passing — was being considered for a bureaucratic federal job. The FBI didn’t suddenly become incompetent, however. As the Times reports, “presidential transition teams are traditionally able to set the parameters for background checks into cabinet picks, and potentially dictate which witnesses are interviewed and what questions are asked.” It was Trump’s team who almost certainly blocked the interviews. It suggests they know what would turn up would look bad, so they would rather not know.
Hegseth also has a fallback position, in case this cover-up doesn’t work. He’s a changed man, he argued, “saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny,” his third wife. As Sen. Kaine reminded viewers during his question period, this is the same woman who gave birth to Hegseth’s daughter while he was still married to his second wife. Two months after that baby was born, the rape allegations were filed against Hegseth. Hegseth denies it was rape, even though he settled out of court with the accuser, but has admitted sex happened, likely because a rape kit produced physical evidence that foreclosed a total denial.
It can’t both be true that the accusations are false and also that Hegseth repents of his behavior, as multiple journalists have pointed out.
PETE HEGSETH ATTORNEY TIM PARLATORE: He didn’t do any of these things that he’s been accused of. PAMELA BROWN: But he’s also admitted he’s a changed man from several years ago. How does that square? If you’re saying he didn’t do any of it, but he’s a changed man.
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— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) December 27, 2024 at 11:58 AM
But it’s not hard for Republicans to reconcile these contradictions for one simple reason: both are lies. It’s not true that Hegseth is the victim of a coordinated smear campaign. It’s also not true that he or his supporters see his past behavior as worth an apology, much less redemption. As Trump explained repeatedly throughout the civil trial, where a jury found him liable for the sexual assault of journalist E. Jean Carroll, he believes it “fortunately” was true that men had a right to sexually abuse women “for a million years.” In the MAGA view, this right to abuse has been unduly stolen by the “woke mob.” If men have to lie about abusing women, well, that’s just self-defense against “political correctness.”
These internal contradictions of Hegseth’s narrative emerged repeatedly on the related topic of whether women should have equal opportunities in the military. As Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., bluntly stated during her questioning, Hegseth’s longstanding view is that “women are inferior soldiers and should not be in combat.” The record on this front is robust. For over a decade, Hegseth has publicly railed about the evils of having women receive equal pay and rewards for combat service, saying in the weeks before his nomination, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles.”
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During the hearing, however, he was doing a tapdance, pretending he was merely talking about having “standards” and claiming that women should not be denied equal opportunity if they meet them. But that’s how things are right now. Physical or other performance standards for military jobs were not changed to accommodate more women. The only “standard” that was changed was whether you had to have “male” on your documentation. He previously claimed, falsely, that “women cannot physically meet the same standards as men.” Job placement statistics show plenty of women meet those standards. He also ascribed female inferiority to brains as well as brawn, writing, “Dads push us to take risks. Moms put the training wheels on our bikes. We need moms. But not in the military, especially in combat units.”
Hegseth repeatedly winked at his real views during Monday’s hearing, saying he believes in a “warrior ethos.” That phrase is weird enough to be a red flag on its own but taken with this history, it’s not subtle. He’s openly stated women are too soft-headed to be combat soldiers. “Warrior ethos” is code for “boys only.”
Hegseth belongs to a radically right-wing church that teaches women were created to be men’s submissive helpmeets, and certainly not to have jobs, especially military jobs, outside of the home. As Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said in her blistering questioning of Hegseth, “You will have to change how you see women to do this job well.” His regressive, misogynist views come into direct conflict with the daily reality of military service, where large numbers of women serve — and the military cannot function without them. But Trump and his supporters no more want Hegseth to change his views than they wish him to repent of all the alleged abuse and sexual misconduct. As with those allegations, it’s seen as fair play for Hegseth to lie and misrepresent his real views on women, as revenge on the “woke mob” for making it politically incorrect to say sexist things out loud in the first place.
It’s exhausting and is meant to be. If Hegseth squeaks through, it will be for the same reason Trump keeps slipping the noose: He’s so comprehensively terrible in every way, that it’s hard to focus on one topline reason to disqualify him. (This is the patented Steve Bannon “flood the zone” strategy of overwhelming your opponents with awfulness until they become helpless to resist.) Hegseth’s misogyny was a big deal during Tuesday’s hearing, but it was far from the only issue raised. There was also his well-documented drinking problem, his mismanagement of two veteran non-profits, his defense of war crimes and disdain for the Geneva Convention, and his general lack of qualifications to lead the Defense Department. Weirdly, the more reasons to vote no stack up, the easier it is for Republicans to get to “yes.” His misogyny is vile, but in the midst of all the other noise, easy enough for Senate Republicans to ignore.
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