Mike LaChance has been following the “Kavanaughing” of Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense.
The latest hit came from NBC, alleging Hegseth has a drinking problem that worried “anonymous” Fox News colleagues.
We all know the media and the left want to discredit all of Trump’s picks. Matt Gaetz already withdrew as attorney general nominee. Sheriff Chris Chronister withdrew from consideration for DEA leader, but both sides criticized him.
Hegseth told the media that Trump told him to “keep going” and “keep fighting,” which shot down (so far) rumors that the president-elect had been thinking of replacing him.
Hegseth also wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed where he vowed not to back down while providing evidence of why he’s qualified to lead the Defense Department:
On these pages 18 years ago I penned an article titled “More Troops, Please.” I was a young U.S. Army lieutenant who had just completed a combat tour in Iraq, and believed we needed more troops and a new strategy to turn the war around. I had seen a lot, been through a lot, and believed in my troops and the mission.Ever since then, I have been fighting for our troops.I didn’t know it at the time, but that op-ed launched my next mission—fighting for the warriors on the home front. Like many veterans of my generation, when I came home I jumped into a new mission—always looking for a way to channel the sense of purpose that had been unleashed in combat.
The nominee explained how he took over Vets for Freedom, which is for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans to support those still fighting overseas. Hegseth admitted the group made mistakes, “but never did anything improper” and “treated everyone with mistake.”
The group backed then-Sen. John McCain over former President Barack Obama. It went into debt but Hegseth “stayed with the organization until all the debt was paid off and outstanding contracts negotiated.”
That’s when Hegseth decided to volunteer for overseas deployment to Afghanistan under Obama:
Fighting and winning our wars was never political to me. I wanted to do my part again; like many warriors of my generation, I found the battlefield had a recurring pull on my passions. But the war wasn’t going well, and we all knew it.
After his tour, Hegseth took over Concerned Veterans for America to fix the Department of Veterans Affairs and help those here at home:
My mission at home continued. This time we fought to fix our broken Department of Veterans Affairs healthcare system, and we made great progress. Our group was the original nexus of the VA accountability and VA healthcare choice legislation that improved the lives of countless veterans. Few groups in Washington ever accomplish as much as we did.We fought entrenched interests and mobilized veterans and patriotic Americans across the country. We had hundreds of employees and thousands of volunteers—yet based on the anonymous accusations of a few disgruntled employees, the legacy media has made it sound as if we ran a college frat house. That’s just untrue.
Hegseth has been at Fox News after he left the organization.
The host then lashed out at the mainstream media, calling out their obvious malicious tactics to bring him down and encouraging people to talk to those around him, especially those who served with him:
The press is peddling anonymous story after anonymous story, all meant to smear me and tear me down. It’s a textbook manufactured media takedown. They provide no evidence, no names, and they ignore the legions of people who speak on my behalf. They need to create a bogeyman, because they believe I threaten their institutional insanity. That is the only thing they are right about.Talk to those who served with me in Guantanamo Bay, Iraq, Afghanistan or the National Guard. They support me, and I’m honored by that. I have never backed down from a fight and won’t back down from this one. I am grateful President-elect Trump chose me to lead the Defense Department, and I look forward to an honest confirmation hearing with our distinguished senators—not a show trial in the press.
You know we can expect more from the media, especially if Hegseth doesn’t drop out or Trump replaces him.
Hegseth also sat down with Megyn Kelly:
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