The Media Research Center has clearly received its marching order from Trump Regime Media HQ — defend and whitewash Pete Hegseth at all cost to drag him through the nomination process for secretary of state. We’ve noted several posts the MRC has cranked in Hegseth’s defense (as well as his mother), and there were plenty more where those came from. Mark Finkelstein spent a Dec. 7 post whining that the cynicism of Trump and other right-wingers in supporting Hegseth was called out by ex-Republican Joe Walsh:
Walsh, vulgar piece of work that he is, was back earning his keep with the liberal media with an appearance Saturday on MSNBC’s The Weekend. Discussing the Hegseth nomination, Walsh said that what’s attractive to Trump about Hegseth is that he’s a “pretty face.” Continued Walsh:
“Trump doesn’t give a shit that Pete Hegseth has a history of treating women like shit. Because that’s what Donald Trump has done. Trump doen’t care that he’s an abuser and a harasser of women, because that’s what Trump has been.”
Rather than expressing any disapproval of Walsh’s crudeness, co-host Michael Steele—another guy who’s made a second career as a Republican who will reliably trash the GOP—expressed his agreement, uttering, “right.” Introducing Walsh at the top of the segment, Steele went out of his way to call him, “my buddy.” You know what Aesop said, Michael.
Finkelstein made no effort to dispute the accuracy of Walsh’s statement.
Jorge Bonilla tried his hand at whataboutism for Hegseth in a Dec. 8 post:
The corrupt media’s multifront war against Defense Secretary-Designate Pete Hegseth continues apace. On CNN’s State of the Union, host Jake Tapper tried to air the anonymously-sourced alcohol abuse allegations against Hegseth during his interview with Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK), and got stopped cold.
Watch as Mullin reminds Tapper that D.C. (including the media) is awash in alcohol click[.] […]
Had the Secretary-designate supported the continuance of transgender soldier policy, and drag shows on board military bases, and the supremacy of DEI and CRT training at the expense of basic operational readiness. Consider, for example, the USS Bonhomme Richard, a $1.2 billion dollar amphibious helicopter carrier that had to be scrapped after suffering catastrophic damage in a shipboard fire while docked in San Diego. Subsequent investigations revealed a lack of training and accountability. It should be noted that the experts are currently in charge at the DoD.
But Hegseth is a reformer at odds with D.C. consensus on how the Department of Defense should be run. Hence, he must be destroyed.
Bonilla offered no evidence that the damage to the USS Bonhomme Richard was caused, either directly or indirectly, by DEI or CRT. Instead, he concluded: “In all likelihood, the media will continue to try to kill the Hegseth nomination. That doesn’t mean that they have to do so unabated.”
Alex Christy helped Hegseth play cleanup over his apparent disparagement of female members of the military in a Dec. 10 post:
Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth correctly called the media out on Monday for lying about his past comments about women not serving in combat in order to suggest he looks down upon women serving, belittles their service, or that he even opposes their inclusion in the military. However, CNN Newsroom host Jim Acosta welcomed Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Jack Reed to his Tuesday show, where they both falsely suggested Hegseth was merely flip-flopping to get confirmed.
To make his point, Acosta introduced two clips of Hegseth, “Pete Hegseth is trying to walk back some of these comments he has previously made about women in the military, saying they have been, quote, ‘misconstrued.’ But let’s listen to what he said in November and compare it to what he said last night on Fox.”
In the first clip, Acosta took a nearly two-and-a-half-hour interview and boiled it down to one sentence, “I’m straight up just saying we should not have women in combat roles. It hasn’t made us more effective, hasn’t made us more lethal, has made fighting more complicated.”
Christy simply parroted Hegseth’s insistence that, despite Christy’s framing to the contrary, women aren’t fit for combat duty. When Acosta noted a later Hegseth statement in which he appeared to be backpedaling by praisng female soldiers, Christy complained that a guest pointed out that “It sounds like a pre-confirmation conversion.” Christy then huffed: “Hegseth did not disown his comments, Acosta just committed an act of journalistic malpractice. Will Daniel Dale fact-check his own colleagues? Probably not, but he should.”
The next day, Bonilla grumbled that Hegseth’s misogyny was called out again:
With the notable exceptions of the shooting of the CEO of UnitedHealthcare and the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, the news cycle appears to be winding down for the holidays. This might explain why CBS is re-running tired narratives on the CBS Evening News.
[…]The report regurgitates liberal hand-wringing over Hegseth’s remarks about women in combat, recycles the various anonymously-sourced allegations currently circulating in the public record, and rehashes Hegseth’s “support” dance with Senators Ernst (R-IA) and Graham (R-SC), which McFarlane literally reported the day before.
This report serves no other purpose than to further efforts to disqualify Hegseth from serving as Secretary of Defense, and it shows.
By the way, you know what DIDN’T make it into the report that would’ve been newsworthy? The letter, signed by dozens of veterans who served with Hegseth, in support of his nomination. THAT would’ve been newsworthy. Counternarrative, but newsworthy.
Were any of those signatories female? Bonilla didn’t note that.
Christy weighed in as well in his comedy-cop mode:
CBS’s Stephen Colbert may fancy himself as a comedian, but basic journalistic standards such as accuracy still apply to him and his jokes. However, The Late Show host used his Tuesday show to spread fake news about Defense Secretary-designate Pete Hegseth as Hegseth attempted to defend himself against a media that continues to spread disinformation about his views on women in the military.
Colbert began his remarks by putting up a shirtless picture of Hegseth, “Yesterday was a big day for Trump Secretary of Defense nominee and gym teacher who shows up uninvited to the senior pool party, Pete Hegseth.”
Getting to the day’s news, Colbert continued, “Hegseth’s nomination has been in trouble after accusations of sexual assault and public drunkenness. So, yesterday, he went up to Capitol Hill on a mission. As CNN described it, “Hegseth’s focus intensifies on key women senators in weeks ahead.” Speaking of women and keys and women, they’re great things to put between your knuckles if you’re approached by Pete Hegseth. Hegseth also did damage control last night on Hannity.”
In a clip of that appearance, Hegseth accurately declared, “And I also want an opportunity here to clarify comments that have been misconstrued that I somehow don’t support women in the military.”
[…]Unfortunately, Colbert is not the first media personality to take this one part of a two-and-a-half-hour podcast appearance and strip it of its context. Also in that interview, Hegseth acknowledges how 360-degree battlefields, such as those that existed in Iraq and Afghanistan, blur the lines of what is and is not a combat job. He also made clear he has no problems with female combat pilots. Hegseth was simply talking about jobs where physical strength is the most important qualification and even then, he was willing to concede that if a woman meets the physical standards for a job, she should get it. He is simply against lowering standards in order to get a talking point about historic firsts or diversity.
Colbert didn’t care about any of this context. Instead, he falsely quipped, “Okay, that sounds pretty construed. But in Pete’s defense, that clip is from all the way back when Pete was—one month ago.”
Christy served up even more comedy criticism of Hegseth when “The Daily Show” refused to take Hegseth at his word:
Comedy Central’s Michael Kosta used The Daily Show’s penultimate episode of 2024 to mock Secretary of Defense-designate Pete Hegseth’s pledge not to drink if confirmed and ridiculed any Senate Republican who believes him.
[…]That was followed by Hegseth himself telling Megyn Kelly, “This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I am doing it.”
Kosta found the whole thing deeply amusing, sarcastically claiming, “That’s good enough for me,” before adding, “When has an alcoholic ever promised to do better and not followed through? What a deal. ‘Just put me in charge of the largest military in history, and I’ll stop drinking.’”
While Hegseth has hailed the fact that he is a “different man” today than he was in previous years, he has also claimed that he never had the serious addiction problem Kosta is alleging. His pledge is both a recognition that people need to trust him when he says he has put his past behind him and a recognition of the need to be both literally and mentally sober for the critical job of Defense Secretary. Kosta would go on to say that even if he didn’t have an infamous past, Hegseth would still be unqualified and inexperienced, but he didn’t have to mock Hegseth’s recovery to make that argument.
Given that Hegseth has offered no actual proof that he’s clean and sober and is otherwise trustworthy, there’s no reason for Christy or anyone else to take his word at face value.