As Pete Hegseth’s nomination for secretary of defense remained in the balance, the Media Research Center’s Trump Regime Media marching orders to drag him across the finish line kept it busy. As Hegseth faced his confirmation hearing, Curtis Houck whined that CNN kept talking about his controversies in a Jan. 14 post:
On Tuesday afternoon following Pete Hegseth’s five-hour-and-15-minute-long confirmation hearing to lead the Pentagon, CNN immediately made clear it was not having a good time, continuing to peddle the alcoholism and tattoo conspiracy theories about the “Kavanaugh-esque” Hegseth, suggested he was in over his head, and Democratic senators asked apt and thorough questions.
The best reaction came at the very end of their special coverage, courtesy of Deep State flack Natasha Bertrand. As the then-Politico reporter who infamously promoted the infamous letter by intelligence officials falsely claiming the Hunter Biden laptop was Russian disinformation, her sense of fear for her sources was perhaps most welcome endorsement Hegseth supporters[.] […]
Back at the beginning, Inside Politics and State of the Union host Dana Bash anchored the special coverage, first gushing over Hegseth having been “under the spotlight and being really peppered” with “very heated questions from Democrats” and whined that, by his very selection, the hearing was a “pretty partisan showing for a role that has not always been that way.”
[…]CNN hall monitor Manu Raju was also part of the crew, comparing Hegseth to John Tower and repeatedly harassing Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Rodger Wicker (R-MS) about needing to “respond to the criticism that the FBI background check was incomplete and did not interview enough of these accusers from decades past.”
[…]CNN This Morning host Kasie Hunt also came off as resigned to Hegseth succeeding since “the reality here is that most of Pete Hegseth confirmation process was probably asked and answered last year before we ever got to this point” as he weathered the (media-concocted) firestorm.
We don’t recall the MRC describing any controversy involving a Democratic nominee as “media-concocted.”
Jorge Bonilla went on a anti-media post-hearing tirade in a Jan. 15 post:
A carefully elaborated media smear campaign, combining the worst elements of the Bork and Kavanaugh confirmation processes, has officially crashed and burned. Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth appears to have bolstered his confirmation chances, and the media were not thrilled to report that.
[…]This nomination was supposed to implode under the weight of the unsourced allegations and the intensity of their echoes reverberating throughout the media. But that didn’t happen. Watching the media’s coverage of the hearing suggests that they know that their Kavaborking campaign failed.
Comedy cop Alex Christy got his anti-media licks in as well:
Comedy Central’s host of the week of The Daily Show, Jordan Klepper, unleashed two clunkers on Tuesday as he reacted to Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth’s Senate confirmation hearing. First, Klepper chopped off one of Hegseth’s answers mid-sentence to falsely claim Hegseth has flip-flopped and gone woke on women in combat. Second, Klepper claimed that Hegseth’s obsession with meritocracy is “damning” because Hegseth himself is just a TV host.
Klepper introduced a clip of Hegseth and GOP Sen. Joni Ernst by sarcastically observing, “Maybe he’s not good at leadership, or management, or money, or vows, or driving home past 10:00 a.m., but the one thing he does is stand his ground. Tell ’em, Pete, no women in combat roles.”
In the clip, Ernst asked, “Let’s make it very clear for everyone here today. As Secretary of Defense, will you support women continuing to have the opportunity to serve in combat roles?” as Hegseth answered, “Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles.”
Klepper responded, “From Washington D.C., the flash, apparently official, at 11:25 standard time, Pete Hegseth went woke.”
Here is Hegseth’s full answer: “Yes, women will have access to ground combat roles, combat roles given the standards remain high.”
Contrary to media reports that he’s having a confirmation conversion, that has always been Hegseth’s position.
[…]As for Klepper, he moved on to other portions of the hearing, “You know, perhaps the most damning comment about Pete Hegseth came from Pete Hegseth himself when he was explaining what the military needs in its leadership.”
That led to a montage where Hegseth frequently used the word “meritocracy” to describe his vision for the Pentagon, “The DEI policies of today are not [jump cut] putting meritocracy first. [jump cut] Every single senior officer will be reviewed based on meritocracy. [jump cut] Getting anything that doesn’t contribute to meritocracy out of how decisions are made inside the Pentagon. [jump cut] Ensuring readiness and meritocracy is front and center. Meritocracy. [jump cut] Meritocracy. [jump cut] Meritocracy.”
Klepper was not a fan, “Oh! I know what his next kid’s going to be named. You heard him, though. You heard him, folks. A military cannot function unless it’s staffed by a system based on pure merit, where only the most qualified people rise to the top. So says your next Secretary of Defense, who will run the most complicated, powerful, deadly organization the world has ever known, and whose only qualification is that Trump liked watching him sit on a couch on Saturday mornings.”
Christy huffed in response: “Of course, Hegseth isn’t just a TV host.” He didn’t mention that Hegseth was removed from his role as head of two veterans groups over apparent overspending and his personal behavior.
Later that day, Christy got stuck hate-watching “The View,” raging that the hosts talked about the confirmation hearing and nitpicking a statement one host made:
ABC’s The View reacted as one would expect on Tuesday to Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth’s confirmation hearing the previous day. The table’s nominal Republican, Alyssa Farah Griffin, applauded Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s strange questioning about ASEAN while Joy Behar implied GOP Sen. Joni Ernst has betrayed her fellow sexual assault survivors by supporting Hegseth’s nomination.
Farah Griffin claimed that, “I thought that Tammy Duckworth was the most effective because she challenged him on facts and duties of the job, and he came up short. He didn’t know what ASEAN is. I have been to the ASEAN Summit. I can name the countries that are in it, and I am woefully unqualified to be the Secretary of Defense.”
ASEAN, or the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, is not a military alliance. It is a vital trading partner and some of its members, Thailand and, most notably, the Philippines, have defense treaties with the United States, but it is possible Hegseth was just confused why Duckworth was talking about an economic union at a military hearing.
Christy also played whataboutism by arguing there were worse defense secretaries than it’s feared Hegseth might be: “The View is not where people go to get their DOD history lessons, but if it wants to talk about history’s least qualified Defense Secretary, that would be Louis Johnson, who was appointed to the job because he was Harry Truman’s top fundraising hack and thought eliminating the Navy and the Marine Corps was a good idea.“
Christy concluded with one more fit of standards-lowering:
Doesn’t everyone need to prove they are good enough to be in combat? Regardless, Hegseth talked about those topics because that is what he was asked about, because people like Duckworth want their strawman version of Hegseth to be the one viewed by the American people as reality.
Clay Waters lashed out at PBS’ reporting on the hearing:
As Donald Trump takes office for the second time, taxpayer-funded PBS News Hour’s most biased reporter, Laura Barron-Lopez, on Monday used the upcoming Senate confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth to once again throw a bunch of sexual-related accusations at prominent Republicans.
But first, co-anchor Geoff Bennett poisoned the hearing waters against Hegseth as well.
[…]Just as she did in November 2024, Barron-Lopez, not content to rehash the allegations against Hegseth, brought up unrelated allegations against Trump, Musk, and RFK Jr., then asked a sympathetic guest whether the MeToo movement is done.
Then it was whataboutism time:
This is from the same network that never breathed a word about assault allegations against “Second Gentleman” Doug Emhoff, husband of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, as outlined in the Daily Mail on October 3 under the headline “Kamala Harris’s husband Doug Emhoff ‘forcefully slapped ex-girlfriend for flirting with another man’ in booze-fueled assault after date to star-studded gala.”
For the fifth — yes, fifth — item of the day, Tim Graham grumbled about hearing coverage:
Senate Democrats brought out the slime buckets for the Pete Hegseth confirmation hearing on Tuesday. The journalists call it “tense,” but we might call the Democrats “unglued.”
Trump’s nominees are receiving much harsher media treatment than Biden’s nominees four years ago. Some hearings are kind of chill, to use youngster slang. Marco Rubio’s getting friendly treatment from his Senate colleagues. Pete Hegseth was fiercely questioned as if he was a fall-down drunk in between sexual assaults.
Senior Research Analyst Bill D’Agostino joins the show to discuss how the media cover a hearing when it seems like the Democrats failed to ruin a nominee. CBS Evening News began with a slew of attacking Democrats. Overall, the Big Three networks aired ten Democrat soundbites to five for the Republicans.
Four years ago, Biden Cabinet picks were gently questioned in comparison with the “grilling” of Trump’s nominees. Biden’s nominees were touted as historic: the first gay Transportation Secretary, the first Native American Secretary of the Interior. Nobody was supposed to mess with History on that, no “grilling” those pioneers.
Funny, we remember that the MRC’s former “news” division, CNSNews.com, was obsessed with the sexuality of “the first gay Transportation Secretary,” Pete Buttigieg and attacked his purported lack of experience, and continued to bash him until CNS met its demise in 2023. CNS attacked other Biden officials as well.