MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski issued an apology Wednesday after a guest described President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, as “too drunk for Fox News.”
During the 7 a.m. hour Eastern Time, David Frum — a columnist for The Atlantic who left the Republican Party after Trump’s victory last month — said, when asked about Hegseth, “Just given what one sees on camera, if you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed — so, that’s alarming.”
Later in the program, Brzezinski paused before a commercial break and said, “A little bit earlier in this block, there was a comment made about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol.”
“The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear,” she added.
“We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often,” Brzezinski acknowledged. “But, right now, I just want to say there’s a lot of good people that work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we’ll want to leave it at that.”
Mika Brzezinski, the co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” walked back a comment made by a guest on Wednesday who said Pete Hegseth was “too drunk for Fox News.”
[Video: MSNBC]
Full story: https://t.co/pS0CSnnleC pic.twitter.com/bsr70337Z5
— TheDesk.net (@TheDeskDotNet) December 5, 2024
What Frum, a former speechwriter for President George W. Bush, and Brzezinski were referencing was apparently reporting by NBC News about 10 anonymous sources who either currently work or formerly worked for Fox News saying Hegseth drank alcohol in excess at times.
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“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,” according to NBC.
“One of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month and heard him complain about being hungover this fall,” the outlet added. “None … could recall an instance when Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he’d been drinking.”
Hegseth’s former Fox News colleague Megyn Kelly questioned him on her podcast Wednesday regarding the allegations of alcohol abuse.
“Check the tape, first of all,” Hegseth said regarding allegations that he was inebriated on-air.
“All of those allegations are anonymous. All of them are unsubstantiated. No one’s putting their name on it. No one can point to an actual incidence in an actual place, an actual piece of evidence. None of it,” he answered regarding drinking issues outside of work, with one claim saying he had to be assisted to walk at times to his hotel room.
Hegseth acknowledged that he, like other veterans, would have beers after coming back from deployments.
“But the idea that I was constantly being carried up anywhere is patently false,” Hegseth said.
Kelly noted, “I did see every single member of ‘Fox & Friends‘ this morning go on the air and say, ‘This is BS.’”
Will Cain knows Pete Hegseth -you want this man as your secretary of defense @PeteHegseth @willcain pic.twitter.com/zjysbdEhC0
— Karli Bonne’ 🇺🇸 (@KarluskaP) December 5, 2024
Kelly herself said in the years she worked with Hegseth at Fox, “Never once, not even the hint of alcohol, or any alcohol problem.”
“Have you stopped drinking now?” Kelly asked him.
Hegseth responded that if he should become secretary of defense, he will view it like a combat deployment and not drink at all.
“I need to make sure the senators and the troops and President Trump and everybody else knows, when you call me 24/7, you’re getting fully dialed in Pete, just like you always did in Iraq and Afghanistan,” he answered.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” Hegseth said.
Frum responded to the controversy regarding his MSNBC comments about Hegseth by writing a column for The Atlantic titled, “The Sound of Fear in the Air.”
“It is an ominous sign that Morning Joe felt it had to apologize for something I said,” he contended.
And since it’s being discussed on-air again today, here’s link to the article I wrote about my experience yesterday on Morning Joe. I want to stress: I am very sympathetic to the predicament faced by TV hosts. These are worrying times. https://t.co/enLo3dBoOW
— David Frum (@davidfrum) December 5, 2024
“You can decide for yourself whether I overstepped the proper limits of television discussion,” Frum wrote. “But I also note that if I did misstep, well, my face was on the screen, my name was on the chyron, and anyone who took offense knows whom to blame.”
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