On MSNBC's Deadline: White House, Angelo Carusone details Pete Hegseth’s history of extremism
Carusone: “One of the things that he has demonstrated for at least the last five years is total fidelity to Donald Trump”
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From the November 13, 2024, edition of MSNBC's Deadline: White House
NICOLLE WALLACE (HOST): Angelo, you waited patiently. Your thoughts on this round of appointments.
ANGELO CARUSONE (GUEST): Gosh, I mean, on the Hegseth thing, the thing I just can't ignore is -- couple of things. One, I remember when Pete Hegseth was on Fox News attacking Donald Trump for criticizing the Iraq war. He was an Iraq war proponent. There's this narrative in right-wing media right now that somehow Pete Hegseth is not a hawk, that he's not someone that is going to get us into wars, that in fact he is aligned with this false narrative that somehow Trump is the peace candidate and that's not true at all. I remember when he was attacking Trump for what he claims was repeating Nancy Pelosi's talking points. And the reason I start there is because it piggybacks off something the general was saying before, is it gets into the -- to his policies.
Because to me, Hegseth's policies is twofold. One, it's fidelity to Donald Trump above all else, because when he started to make that shift, a few years after he was -- when he shifted from being a never-Trumper to fully on board with Trump, that required a big change. And one of the things that he has demonstrated for at least the last five years is total fidelity to Donald Trump. And he obviously saw this DEI piece as an opportunity to really further ingratiate himself, and so a lot of his conversations and discussions have really centered around that as the source of all the issues with our foreign policy and our military. And, so, that's the first policy that concerns me is that. Especially when we think about all the warnings, as you noted before, and all the open discussions about how Trump plans to misuse the military for his purposes. I don't think we want somebody there who above all else has fidelity to Donald Trump. I think we want somebody there that has fidelity to the Constitution and to what they serve. So they can provide good advice and good countermeasure and a good counterweight. That's the first thing.
The second thing that hasn't come up yet that concerns me in terms of his policies is that if he's not a Christian nationalist, he's one of the best warriors. He sees the military, at this point, as a flaming sword for Christ. One of the other things that he pushes on outside of misogyny and DEI is anti-Muslim bigotry. I mean, he constantly talks about, even more recently, that there -- that Muslims reproduce too much, that Christians need to be aware of this and fight back and push back. This is a theme that he has and he -- it is not just purely rooted in anti-Muslim bigotry, it is actually rooted more in his feelings for Christ and that ties in with something that the first guest Paul was talking about, and that's really the takeaway for me, is that the real concern around Hegseth, aside from all those things, is not just his fidelity and -- you know, how he sees the military, it's that he is really good at comms and culture.
Part of the appeal to Trump to him is how he looks. I watched 650 Trump rallies and very few of them, in almost all of them, did he talk about one or two men in the audience that were big, beautiful and muscular and what he sees in Hegseth is sort of an alpha man, an essential casting, an ideal character. And Hegseth knows that and leans into that role. And so, a part of what he's going to be designed to do is to sell what Trump's vision, what Trump is doing, to the very audience that just elected Trump, that's hopped up on the Russian misinformation and other misinformation that they're being pickled in, and he's going to be their public figure for that. That, to me, is the time he could be on the surface a very effective vanguard for the scariest of Trump's policies.
WALLACE: Well, and the tie to Trump -- I mean, the first business they did together, Angelo, was for Hegseth, as a weekend morning cable host, to intervene in the system of justice inside the military. Talk about that.
CARUSONE: Yes, as you were going through that, when he was advocating for the pardons of those individuals, I also remember that moment. One thing that didn't get brought up is the same time that he was pushing for those pardons, he was also making personnel decisions, he was advocating for the Secretary of the Navy to be fired on a regular basis and ultimately Trump did just that. As a direct result of watching his show. He made personnel decisions, he targeted those individuals. And so that, you know, to me, is sort of -- obviously it's not just a reflection of how he sees justice, these people were -- went through the process, they were found guilty, but I think it ties in with that he's willing to advocate for, you know, for influence and power, and he's willing to use personnel as a weapon. And that's exactly what Trump, at least on the surface, what he's said he's going to do.
And I think -- we talked about this a lot over the last few months, one of the things that Project 2025, or whatever people -- even if they don't agree with it, Agenda 47 -- what Trump has been saying is that he's going to go in, he's going to smash what they have identified as the deep state, which is all the bureaucrats that help make it work, they're going to replace it with loyalists and enemy number one is what they see as DEI, so then they could have smooth runway to misuse, abuse, and implement all their policies across the government.
So, him seeing the military as a flaming sword for Christ isn't just something he's going to observe, Hegseth intends to use that and help Trump use that for instrument of his policies. And that's really what ultimately scares me. I get this idea about qualified, not qualified. You know, there's a lot of positions there and what that means is sort of -- varies. I think the discussion about what he represents and what he reflects and what he could do, that's the part that is much scarier to me. And I think those -- that's what makes him to me, in this purpose, if not unqualified, certainly not a candidate or someone that should be in that role.