Fox News stars defend imperiled ex-colleague Pete Hegseth amid misconduct allegations
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Pete Hegseth's former colleagues at Fox News are rallying to his side. After disregarding a series of misconduct allegations against Hegseth for days on end, the right-wing network has shifted into a new posture: defense.
On Wednesday, several prominent personalities on Fox News, where he was a weekend co-host of "Fox and Friends," defended him on-air and provided a forum for others, including his own mother, to do the same.
The right-wing network is highly influential in Republican politics and watched by millions of viewers, including President-elect Donald Trump, who has tapped several of the channel's faces for key roles in his administration.
Hegseth, Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, is facing skepticism from Republican senators amid reports of a series of misconduct allegations, including a sexual assault allegation, which Hegseth has denied, and claims of financial mismanagement and alcohol abuse. Some commentators are practically talking about Hegseth in the past tense and speculating about who Trump will pick to replace him. But Hegseth is fighting to save his nomination in public; he is courting not just senators on Capitol Hill, but right-wing media listeners and followers who tend to vote for those senators.
Amid the mounting scrutiny, Hegseth's friends at Fox are simultaneously, and suddenly, speaking up on his behalf.
Last week, when The New York Times reported on the existence of a scathing 2018 email from Hegseth's mother Penelope saying he "abused" many women, comments a short time later she said she regretted, Fox ignored the story completely. The network also ignored a report in The New Yorker that indicated Hegseth was "forced out of previous leadership positions for financial mismanagement, sexist behavior, and being repeatedly intoxicated on the job."
President Joe Biden meets with President-elect Donald Trump in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington.
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Some of the allegations about Hegseth date back to his years at Fox, making this a complex situation for Fox Corp CEO Lachlan Murdoch and Fox News Media CEO Suzanne Scott.
Penelope Hegseth's emotional email, for example, was in response to Hegseth's affair with a Fox News executive producer, Jennifer Rauchet, who is now his wife.
On Wednesday morning, as Hegseth ramped up his own public defense, his mother appeared on "Fox & Friends" for her first television interview. She sidestepped host Steve Doocy's first question, looked straight into the camera and thanked Trump, a frequent viewer of the show, "for your belief in my son."
"We all believe in him. We really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago," Penelope Hegseth said. She also addressed "female senators" on Capitol Hill, saying, "I really hope that you will not listen to the media and that you will listen to Pete." She proceeded to condemn The Times for reporting on her email and emphasized that in a followup message, which has not been published, she had apologized to her son.
The dominant narrative among Hegseth's defenders is a tried-and-true one: That liberals in the media are out to get a conservative.
Vice president-elect JD Vance said in a social media post Wednesday morning that "the media never talks about the apology" by Hegseth's mother "because they're trying to destroy him, not tell the truth." (In fact, the original Times story noted the apology high up in the story and referenced it repeatedly.)
Fox personality Emily Compagno said on Wednesday's "Fox & Friends" that it's "laughable" to think that Hegseth "will back down now or will in any way capitulate to the witch-hunt being wielded by the left."
During the same segment, co-host Brian Kilmeade delivered an impassioned argument on Hegseth's behalf, saying "he knows his stuff, he's got the vision, he fought in the wars."
Kilmeade asserted that many senators can relate to Hegseth's complicated family (he has been married three times and has seven children or step-children) and can admire his advocacy for veterans. He also pointed to Hegseth's appearances across Fox for the past decade as a valuable credential. "There's no show he can't do!" Kilmeade said.
An anonymously sourced NBC News story about Hegseth and alcohol use caused some of his friends to speak out publicly on Tuesday night. Will Cain, the "Fox & Friends Weekend" co-host who sat next to Hegseth for five years, started the snowball effect. Cain repeatedly posted on X refuting the story and encouraged others to do the same.
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By midday Wednesday, the alcohol use allegations had spurred more than a dozen Fox hosts and regular guests to defend Hegseth, including the third co-host of the weekend show, Rachel Campos-Duffy. "This is why Americans hate the media & politics," Campos-Duffy remarked. "GOP senators CANNOT fold to these cheap anonymous attacks," Cain added.
Kilmeade also alluded to the reports on air, commenting that "Pete is cut out of stone. He is a rock. The guy eats healthier, acts healthier, works harder."
Hegseth taped a sit-down interview with former Fox host Megyn Kelly and then told journalists on Capitol Hill that Kelly's podcast would probably answer the questions they wanted to ask him. Hegseth told Kelly that he has "never had a drinking problem" but acknowledged that when he returned from a tour of duty he began drinking "to deal with the demons."
On "The Lead with Jake Tapper," Hegseth's attorney Tim Parlatore took aim at the anonymous nature of the media reports and referenced the defenses from Fox figures like Cain. "We have all these anonymous complaints where people are saying things, they aren't giving any specifics, they don't have any corroboration whatsoever, and yet the people who were also there at the time are willing to come on the record by name, on camera, and say ‘this didn't happen.'"
The defense of Hegseth rippled across right-wing media outlets on Wednesday. Whether the commentary will influence Republican senators remains to be seen.
