President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense secretary nominee Pete Hegseth was forced to step down from the head of two nonprofit veterans groups he ran amid allegations of repeated drunken public behavior in front of staff, the New Yorker reported—the latest allegations against Hegseth that could threaten his confirmation in the Senate.
Pete Hegseth, former host of Fox & Friends, at the National Council of Young Israel Gala in New York ... [+]
While serving as president of Concerned Veterans for America in 2014, Hegseth brought staff to a Louisiana strip club and had to be restrained from joining the dancers on stage, according to a seven-page whistleblower report obtained by The New Yorker, and on another work trip, to Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, in May 2015, Hegseth drunkenly yelled “Kill All Muslims” while he was out partying late at a hotel bar, The New Yorker reported, citing a letter from a fellow staffer to a superior at the organization.
The report alleges Hegseth, who was married at the time, was “seen drunk at multiple CVA events” between 2013 and 2015 and regularly tried to “‘hook up’ with women on the road” (Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, provided the magazine with a statement from “an advisor” to Hegseth that called the claims “outlandish” and stemming from “a petty and jealous disgruntled former associate”).
In 2018, Hegseth’s mother, Penelope Hegseth, asked her son to “get some help and take an honest look at yourself” after “all the women (and I know it’s many) you have abused in some way” by being a man that “belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego,” according to an email obtained by the New York Times, though she told the outlet she immediately apologized for the accusation, which she said was written “in anger, with emotion.”
Cramer was noncommittal about Hegseth’s nomination, telling NBC News the allegations he sexually assaulted a woman in a Monterey, Calif., hotel in 2017 were “a pretty big problem, given that we have . . . a sexual assault problem in our military,” adding the accusations demonstrate the need for background checks, and telling the network, “I’m not going to pre-judge him, but yeah, it’s a pretty concerning accusation.”
The Guardian also reported on Monday new details from Hegseth’s 2020 book, “American Crusade,” in which he criticizes the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the United Nations, calling the UN a “fully globalist organization that aggressively advances an anti-American, anti-Israel and anti-freedom agenda,” while claiming NATO is a “relic and should be scrapped and remade,” questioning why “Islamist Turkey” is a member.
Despite the controversies surrounding Hegseth, a total of 33% of Americans polled by CBS/YouGov said he was a good choice for Defense secretary, while 28% said he’s not a good pick and 39% said they haven’t heard enough about him.
New details from the 2017 assault allegations emerged in a police report: Hegseth’s accuser told police in Monterey, Calif., she was at an afterparty for a conference of the California Federation of Republican Women, where Hegseth was a speaker, when she confronted Hegseth about his allegedly inappropriate behavior with other women at the conference, then ended up in a hotel room with him where she remembers him hovering over her shirtless and ejaculating on her stomach.
The woman, identified as “Jane Doe” in the report, told police she “remembered saying ‘no’ a lot” when she was with Hegseth in his room and that Hegseth “took her phone from her hands” then “blocked the door with his body” when she tried to leave, according to the report.
Hegseth, who told police the two had consensual sex that night, according to the document, responded directly to the allegations for the first time Thursday, telling reporters at the Capitol “as far as the media’s concerned, it’s very simple, the matter was fully investigated and I was completely cleared, and that’s where I’m going to leave it” when asked by a reporter if he sexually assaulted a woman in Monterey.
At least one other Republican senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa—a member of the Senate Armed Services committee who has openly criticized the military’s handling of sexual assault allegations—expressed reservations about Hegseth, telling Politico the claims are worthy of a “discussion,” adding, “any time there are allegations, you want to make sure they are properly vetted.”
Hegseth, or any cabinet nominee that requires Senate approval, can afford to lose only three Republican votes to be confirmed for the job as the GOP will hold a slim 53-47 majority beginning next year. Hegseth and Vice President-elect JD Vance are lobbying lawmakers on Capitol Hill, and other GOP senators have expressed support, including Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who met with Hegseth on Thursday and told Politico he is a “strong nominee” who “pledged that the Pentagon will focus on strength and hard power—not the current administration’s woke political agenda.”
The sexual assault allegations first surfaced several days after Trump announced Hegseth as his pick to lead the defense department via a memo sent to his transition team from a woman who said she was friends with the accuser. The accuser told police she went to the hospital, where a rape kit was performed, after having flashbacks to the incident several days after returning home from the conference, according to the police report.
Hegseth has firmly denied the allegations through his lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, who said Hegseth paid the woman a settlement in 2020 as part of a nondisclosure agreement. Parlatore said Hegseth entered into the agreement when he learned the woman and her husband hired a lawyer and told other people she planned to file a lawsuit against him. Hegseth told police he was intoxicated that night and did not know why the accuser returned to his hotel room with him, but that they had consensual sex, according to the police report. He said the woman “showed early signs of regret” the next morning, and he assured her that he would not tell anyone about the encounter, the report states.
No. Police recommended the case to the Monterey County District Attorney’s Office for review, but charges were never filed.
Hegseth—who served in the National Guard—has intensely criticized military leadership, castigating their handling of the Afghanistan withdrawal. He has also drawn controversy for criticizing diversity initiatives within the military, and calling for the dismissal of military leaders he believes are connected to “woke” policies. He has publicly and privately advocated for members of the military accused of war crimes. Meanwhile, The Guardian reported Hegseth wrote in his 2020 book “American Crusade” that if President Joe Biden won the election, the military and police would be “forced to make a choice” and that there would be “some form of civil war.” Trump has previously suggested he would use the military to go after domestic political opponents, which he described as “the enemy from within.”
Hegseth has argued women should not serve in combat roles, drawing some criticism. In his 2024 “The War on Warriors,” recapped by The Guardian, Hegseth reiterated his stance that only men should serve in combat roles. “If we’re going to send our boys to fight—and it should be boys—we need to unleash them to win,” he wrote, adding they need “to be the most ruthless” and “the most uncompromising. The most overwhelmingly lethal as they can be.”
Trump called Hegseth a “warrior” and “a true believer in America First” in a statement announcing the nomination on Nov. 12. The statement touts his service in the Army National Guard and his deployments to Guantanamo Bay, Iraq and Afghanistan, along with his eight years as a Fox News host. A spokesperson for Trump’s transition team told the Associated Press in response to the police report being made public Thursday it “corroborates what Mr. Hegseth’s attorneys have said all along: the incident was fully investigated and no charges were filed because police found the allegations to be false.” The report does not say whether officials made a determination about the allegations.
Police Report Details 2017 Sexual Assault Allegation Against Pete Hegseth (Forbes)
Trump’s Defense Secretary Pick Pete Hegseth Named In 2017 Sexual Assault Probe (Forbes)