The nomination of Pete Hegseth — the weekend Fox & Friends host Donald Trump selected to serve as defense secretary — is in trouble. Weeks of disturbing stories about Hegseth’s character and competence have Republican senators sitting on the fence, while Trump himself is reportedly contemplating other options. 

But Hegseth’s Fox colleagues, who initially ignored the reports, have finally come to his defense over the last day, setting up a potential test of the influence the right-wing propaganda network will hold over the second Trump administration.

Hegseth is wildly underqualified to lead the Pentagon. The defense secretary’s job is to oversee a massive bureaucracy with millions of military and civilian employees and a budget in the hundreds of billions, and while Hegseth is a decorated military veteran, he has no experience managing such a large organization. 

For Trump, however, Hegseth has the skills and experience required for any position: The former president likes his work on TV. 

Hegseth spent the past decade as a Fox talking head. In that role, he pontificated about the perils of allowing women to serve in combat roles, defended U.S. service members and contractors who had been accused or convicted of war crimes, and floated military assaults on Iran and North Korea. 

Along the way, Hegseth relentlessly propagandized on Trump’s behalf, which made him an influential figure during Trump’s first presidency. His selection to run the Pentagon was not an aberration — a slew of current and former network personalities could join Hegseth in the second Trump administration thanks to the incoming president’s Fox obsession.

But relying on Fox to vet cabinet nominees has left something to be desired when it comes to Hegseth, who has been battered by a series of devastating reports:

• Days after Trump named Hegseth as his pick for defense secretary, local officials in California confirmed that the former Fox host had been investigated for sexual assault in October 2017 after speaking at a convention of the California Federation of Republican Women. A woman told police that Hegseth had “physically blocked her from leaving a hotel room, took her phone, and then sexually assaulted her even though she ‘remembered saying “no” a lot,’” while Hegseth said they had a consensual encounter, CNN reported. No charges were filed, but Hegseth later paid a settlement agreement which included a confidentiality clause because “he didn’t want to lose his job at the network if the accusation became public,” according to Hegseth’s lawyer.
• The New York Times reported last week that in a 2018 email, Hegseth’s mother wrote to him, “On behalf of all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way, I say … get some help and take an honest look at yourself.” The paper noted that she emailed her son amid his “contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha, the mother of three of his children,” who had been his co-worker at Vets for Freedom and that “Samantha Hegseth filed for divorce after her husband impregnated a co-worker,” a Fox executive producer whom he married the following year.
• The New Yorker reported Sunday: “A trail of documents, corroborated by the accounts of former colleagues, indicates that Hegseth was forced to step down by both of the two nonprofit advocacy groups that he ran—Veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America—in the face of serious allegations of financial mismanagement, sexual impropriety, and personal misconduct. A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events.”

Fox’s right-wing propagandists and “news side” reporters alike remained silent about these controversies, as CNN’s Brian Stelter reported on Tuesday, instead using euphemisms about how Hegseth was facing “problems about his personal conduct” and is “headed for a tough confirmation.” 

“In effect, Fox has insulated its conservative audience from reports that might dim their perception of Hegseth and Trump, instead offering viewers a safe space where their existing beliefs are reinforced by sympathetic hosts and guests,” Stelter wrote.

With Fox on the sidelines, GOP senators backed away from supporting Hegseth’s nomination. Trump himself reportedly began looking at other options for the Defense Department, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, another Fox favorite. 

But Hegseth’s Fox colleagues finally rallied to his defense on Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, as his nomination reportedly faced an “absolutely critical” juncture.

After NBC News reported Tuesday night that Hegseth “drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees” and had at times smelled of alcohol on the set, Hegseth’s Fox & Friends weekend co-host Will Cain organized public denials from network employees and testimonials to their former colleague’s character.

Fox & Friends’ co-hosts on Wednesday morning offered several minutes of praise for Hegseth, denials of the reports about him, and attacks on what they termed a media “witch hunt.” “No, we will not succumb to the left’s playbook,” Emily Compagno said. “We will not succumb to Kavanaugh becoming a verb in that the left likes to wield the media and a very public witch hunt to thwart the possibility for actual success.”

They hosted Hegseth’s mother later in the show, who defended her son, saying that he “doesn't misuse women” and that while he “has been through some difficult things. … I would just say that some of those attachments or descriptions are just not true, especially anymore.”

She also made a direct appeal to Trump himself.

Hegseth himself remains defiant, and he will reportedly sit down tonight with Fox chief political anchor Bret Baier for an interview aimed at an audience of one — Trump, who will almost certainly be watching as he decides whether to keep pushing for Hegseth’s nomination or cut him loose. 

With Hegseth’s Fox friends trying to preserve his spot at Defense he has a chance, but their effort may be too little, too late. 

Correction (12/4/24): This piece originally stated that Pete Hegseth married his current wife the same year she became pregnant with their child; it was the following year.