CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski did some digging into some of Hegseth’s past remarks about Trump, and it ain’t pretty. As we’ve already discussed here, Hegseth’s nomination for Defense Secretary may already be doomed, even though Fox is still trying to defend him.
Kaczynski made an appearance on Erin Burnett’s show this Tuesday, and discussed some of the footage of Hegseth they had in their archives, and all I know is none of it will make Mango Mussolini happy.
They first discussed the godawful stuff Hegseth has said that should disqualify him from the position no matter what else is out there, before moving onto what he’s said about Trump.
During the 2016 presidential election, Hegseth initially supported Republican Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz. He harshly criticized Trump’s grasp of national security issues and for saying that he got his military advice from people like himself on Fox News.
“You wouldn’t want a top-tier presidential candidate getting all of their military advice from watching ‘Meet the Press.’ There’s a lot more nuance. There’s a lot more detail,” Hegseth said in August 2015. “Foreign policy, national security is not about TV shows. [The campaign is] going to have to walk back a little bit from this idea that he gets it from the political shows.”
Before Trump secured the 2016 Republican nomination, Hegseth also attacked him for his five draft deferments during the Vietnam War, calling him an “armchair tough guy.”
“[Trump is] all bluster, very little substance. He talks a tough game. But then when pressed he’s an armchair tough guy,” Hegseth said on Fox News in March 2016, noting that Trump sought his “own five military deferments.”
In October 2015, Hegseth further attacked Trump for flip-flopping his position on the war in Afghanistan – first saying he never supported the war and calling it a mistake before reversing that position – and condemned Trump’s stance on the Iraq War and the veterans who fought in it.
Hegseth on numerous occasions was critical of Trump’s stances on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which the president-elect has shifted multiple times over the years. However, Hegseth has since embraced Trump’s skepticism of those two wars and his “America First” ethos.
Of course he has, because he’s an opportunist that doesn’t believe in anything other than self promotion and is probably as big of a narcissist as Trump.
I’m hoping after his nomination goes down in flames, we never have to see him on Fox again. Although he’ll probably wind up on some MAGA/bro podcast instead, continuing to pollute the minds of the cult if that happens.
There never seems to be any consequences for the worst people in our country that would be happy to help destroy what’s left of our democracy. This guy should be a pariah for the rest of his life after what’s been revealed about him, but I guarantee that won’t happen.
Nothing matters any more if you’re a Republican. Constant gaslighting, lies, sexual abuse, infidelity, pretending to be a Christian while you’re violating everything you supposedly believe in, hypocrisy, and aiding and abetting people like Putin and our other enemies. None of it.
I used to think that Bush and Cheney and Rove were the worst of what we’d ever have to put up with. They all paved the road for these assholes, and boy was I wrong.
