Pete Hegseth thought that he ‘had to’ pay off a woman accusing him of rape because he was married and up for a new job and wanted to allegations to go away.
A series of concerning reports have cast doubt over whether Hegseth will remain Donald Trump‘s pick to lead the Defense Department.
A woman accused Hegseth, 44, of raping her at the Republican women’s conference in California in 2017. No charges were filed but there is a police report of the allegations.
It was the middle of the #MeToo movement, and Hegseth’s lawyer said he was afraid of losing his Fox News position if the allegations got out, so he paid the woman as part of a nondisclosure agreement first reported last month by the Washington Post.
Speaking with Megyn Kelly on her show on Wednesday, Hegseth declined to disclose how much he paid the woman.
‘I paid her because I had to, or at least I thought I did at the time,’ Hegseth detailed.
‘She got lawyers that reached out to mine and said, ‘If you don’t come forward, and if you don’t pay money, then ultimately we’re going to out him.’ We were in the middle of a #MeToo movement. I had a great job at Fox and a wonderful marriage.’
He continued: ‘It’s not what I should have done… I did it to protect my wife. I did it to protect my family, and I did it to protect my job, and it was a negotiation purely to try to prevent that.’
Hegseth admitted onr SiriusXM’s The Megyn Kelly Show that there is some truth to the flurry of damning reports.
Pete Hegseth went on The Megyn Kelly Show on Wednesday to again defend himself against a slew of damning reports about him – and admitted there are ‘kernels of truth’ in some of the stories. He also explained that he paid a woman accusing him of rape because he was worried about it harming his career and wife
Hegseth also wrote in an op/ed of his time working at Vets for Freedom: ‘Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced. But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect’
The former Fox News host said he received words of encouragement from Trump when they spoke Wednesday morning amid a flurry of news reports containing allegations against Hegseth.
From the get go, Hegseth was a controversial pick in part due to his more fringe views – like saying women should not serve in combat roles in the military.
But other, more concerning reports emerged over the last two weeks, including claims of sexual harassment; allegations that he was carried out of events on works trips because he was too drunk and would routinely drink on the job; and a New York Times report publishing a 2018 email from his mother calling Hegseth an ‘abuser of women.’
Hegseth told Kelly there are ‘kernels of truth’ is some reporting that he claims have been blown into something that now more resembled a lie.
If appointed to lead the Defense Department, Hegseth insisted that he won’t drink at all.
‘This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,’ he said on Wednesday.
He also published an op/ed with the Wall Street Journal where he admitted to sometimes having some alcohol with other military members ‘to manage the reality of what we had faced’ in war zones.
He also spoke on that with Kelly, who is a fellow former Fox host.
‘What do guys do when they come back from war oftentimes? Have some beers. How do you deal with the demons you see on the battlefield? Sometimes it’s with a bottle,’ he expressed.
‘Unfortunately, tragically, for too many guys it’s with the bottle and then it’s depression and then, even worse, suicide.’
‘I found my chapters of purpose that pulled me out of that,’ he said.
‘I’m a very different person than I was 10 years ago,’ Hegseth insisted, pointing to his wife Jennifer Rauchet and his Christian faith.
Speaking to Kelly, Hegseth detailed his conversation with Trump on Wednesday and says he was provided words of encouragement from the president-elect to continue his Capitol Hill campaign to lobby senators to vote for his confirmation in the New Year.
‘He supports me. We talked,’ Hegseth said of his conversation with Trump. ‘He said, you go meet those senators and I’ve got your back.’
The father-of-seven also recalled to Kelly how Trump said: ‘Pete, I’ve got your back. It’s a fight, they’re coming after you. Get after it.’
Hegseth was joined by wife Jennifer Rauchet during meetings on Capitol Hill on December 4, 2024 as he continues to meet with senators and lobby for their confirmation vote next year
Hegseth’s mother Penelope went on Fox & Friends on Wednesday morning to counter the New York Times after it published a 2018 email she sent to her son in the midst of his divorce where she called him an ‘abuser of women’
Kelly asked Hegseth if he felt like he was getting the same media treatment as Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh received during his confirmation process.
‘I had a member not 45 minutes ago look me in the eye in private, just he and I, 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 did so far. 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,” he continued in recollecting what a Republican lawmaker told him.
Hegseth, however, lauded the Trump nominee who went on to be confirmed: ‘Kavanaugh stood up and he fought and he won. And hopefully Republicans have learned that lesson.’
‘Trump stood by him,’ he added. ‘What you’re seeing right now with me is the art of the smear.’
‘Take whatever tiny kernels of truth – and there are tiny, tiny ones in there – and blow them up into a masquerade of a narrative about somebody that I am definitely not,’ Hegseth concluded.
Some of the most damning reports allege that Hegseth routinely would get drunk or drink excessively while working at veterans organizations as well as when he was a host at Fox News.
In the Journal op/ed penned on Wednesday, Trump’s Pentagon chief pick acknowledged that he wasn’t always perfect when he was helping lead the initiative at Vets for Freedom and sometimes might have had a few too many beers.
‘We weren’t perfect, but we were always honest and earnest,’ he admitted. ‘We raised money honestly and spent it earnestly—to advance our cause. We weren’t political experts, but we were patriotic believers.’
‘Like veterans returning from any war, we drank beers to manage the reality of what we had faced,’ he wrote. ‘But we never did anything improper, and we treated everyone with respect. We had a new mission and fought for it.’
When Trump told the veteran that he would nominate him as the next Defense Secretary, Hegseth claimed he told him: ‘You’re going to need to be tough as shit.’
