Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth swore in an interview on Wednesday that he “never had a drinking problem”—even as he admitted turning to alcohol after war.
Hegseth told podcaster Megyn Kelly no one has ever suggested he was a heavy drinker, a day after an NBC News report cited numerous sources who said Hegseth repeatedly arrived at work on the set of Fox & Friends Weekend reeking of alcohol.
“But you know,“ he said. ”What do guys do when they come back from war? Oftentimes, have some beers."
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“How do you deal with the demons you see on the battlefield?” he continued. “Sometimes it’s with a bottle.” The former Fox News star said his two “Js”—his wife, Jennifer, and Jesus—“pulled me out of that.”
“Without those two Js, I wouldn’t be sitting here right now,” he admitted.
Hegseth spent much of the more than 11-minute segment brushing aside the torrent of criticisms and allegations that have come his way since President-elect Donald Trump nominated him to run the Pentagon. He claimed he was a victim of “the art of the smear,” singling out media outlets for their dogged reporting on his alleged drinking habit and abuse of women.
“The media is driving with this ridiculous narrative,” he said. “It’s our turn to, it’s our time to stand up and tell the truth and our side.”
Hegseth was part of that media sphere he spent time attacking on Wednesday. Trump plucked him from the Fox & Friends Weekend couch last month to join his incoming Cabinet, leading to a series of stories regarding sexual assault allegations leveled against Hegseth, his reported infidelities, a written lashing from his own mother, and his purported penchant for inebriation.
A “Jane Doe” accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her while the two attended a Republican conference together in Monterey, California, in 2017. Hegseth denied the claims and no criminal charges were ever filed, but he did eventually pay the woman an undisclosed settlement.
The New Yorker then revealed a whistleblower report that alleged Hegseth, while president of Concerned Veterans for America, was at times drunk on the job. (Hegseth, notably, did not deny the magazine’s claims.)
Hegseth’s alleged mistreatment of women was such a problem—his second marriage ended after he impregnated another woman—that his mother, Penelope Hegseth, eviscerated him in a 2018 email.
“You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego,“ she wrote in an email obtained by The New York Times. "You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth."
Penelope Hegseth told The Times she regretted writing those words and claimed she sent a follow-up email apologizing, though she has yet to produce it. She told Fox News on Wednesday that the email she wrote was “misinformation” and claimed the Times threatened her into participating, and she now found her son to be a changed man.
Hegseth, who Trump is still backing, appeared to agree with Megyn Kelly that he was being “Kavanaughed,” referencing the Supreme Court justice who faced sexual assault allegations during his confirmation process.
“I had a member not 45 minutes ago look me in the eye, in private... and say, ‘That’s what they’re trying to do to you. That’s their playbook. Get ready for more, and they’re going to make it up just like they have so far,“ Hegseth replied, quoting what he said a lawmaker told him. ”‘All anonymous, all innuendo, all rumor, nothing sourced, no verification, and they’re just going to keep doing it because you’re a threat to them. You’re a threat to their system, you’re a threat to all the things in Washington, D.C., the swamp, the things that people have rejected. You’re a threat to that.’”
Hegseth’s performance appeared to do well with Trump’s transition team, as his “War Room” X account posted multiple clips from the interview onto his feed.
But one thing Hegseth promised he wouldn’t do on the job should he get confirmed was another tactile admission: He said on Wednesday he wouldn’t drink on the job.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life,” he told Kelly, “and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it.”
