Pete Hegseth, the former Fox News personality President-elect Donald Trump tapped for defense secretary in spite of the sexual assault allegations against him, alarmed his colleagues at the network with his alcohol usage, current and former Fox News employees told NBC News on Tuesday.
Ten of his colleagues shared their observations about Hegseth with NBC News, two of whom said they smelled alcohol on his breath more than a dozen times before he went on air to co-host “Fox & Friends Weekend.”
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“Everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on the air,” one of the former Fox employees told NBC.
“He’s such a charming guy, but he just acted like the rules didn’t apply to him,” one of the former employees also said.
Hegseth, who left Fox News after Trump nominated him to lead the Defense Department, would also complain about being hungover before going on air, some of the sources said. However, none could recall Hegseth missing work because of his drinking.
Even so, one current and two former network employees said they felt they needed to “babysit” Hegseth, with one saying: “We’d have to call him to make sure he didn’t oversleep because we knew he’d be out partying the night before.”
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Tom Williams via Getty Images
Allegations of alcohol abuse and excessive late-night partying are serious considering the job Hegseth is up for. Defense secretaries are called on at all hours of the night to deal with international matters, often with life-or-death consequences.
Hegseth’s lawyer deferred comment to the Trump transition team, which said: “These disgusting allegations are completely unfounded and false, and anyone peddling these defamatory lies to score political cheap shots is sickening. As a decorated combat veteran, Pete has never done anything to jeopardize that, and he is treating his nomination as the most important deployment of his life.”
Fox News did not immediately return a request for comment.
NBC News’ report comes two days after The New Yorker published a bombshell report about Hegseth, a former Army National Guard officer, being forced out of top roles at two veterans groups due to “serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct,” the outlet wrote.
The New Yorker article corroborates NBC News’ reporting about his drinking habits, citing an email sent to one of Hegseth’s successors at the organization stating that Hegseth had a “history of alcohol abuse.”
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The alcohol misuse allegations come as Hegseth is already battling sexual assault allegations. Last month, the City of Monterey, California, confirmed that Hegseth was involved in a police investigation about an assault that allegedly took place at the Hyatt Regency Monterey Hotel and Spa during a convention hosted by the California Federation of Republican Women in 2017.
Hegseth has denied any wrongdoing and maintained that the sexual encounter was consensual. He has also falsely claimed he was “completely cleared” by a police investigation.
The New Yorker report also included allegations that at one of the veterans’ groups, Hegseth and other members of his management team “sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers” and promoted a culture of sexism that led to a male employee attempting to assault a female colleague.
And according to an email obtained by The New York Times last week, Hegseth’s mom referred to him as an “abuser of women” in the midst of his 2018 divorce proceedings.