Pete Hegseth Is Somehow Worse Than Previously Reported

Trump’s nominee to run the defense department is an accused rapist who’s also expressed admiration for the Confederacy. His confirmation hearings start Tuesday.

By Kylie Cheung | January 13, 2025 | 4:02pm

Photo: Getty Images Politics

Pete Hegseth Is Somehow Worse Than Previously Reported

In December, Senate Republicans bemoaned that confirmation hearings for Donald Trump’s nominee for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, would be bad. Bad for them, they meant, because they’re annoyed about how public outrage over Hegseth’s varying, disturbing scandals will be draining for them. But I am here to clarify that, actually, Hegseth’s confirmation hearings, which start on Tuesday, will be much worse for the rest of us.

As we’ve known for well over a month now, Hegseth is an alleged rapist, alcoholic, and open misogynist. But according to a new CNN report on Monday, Hegseth also has a history of disturbing comments, seemingly supporting the U.S. Confederacy. During several speaking arrangements between 2021 and 2024, Hegseth criticized the removal of Confederate names on military bases as “sham,” “garbage,” and “crap.”

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“We should change it back, by the way,” he said of North Carolina’s Fort Liberty—which used to be Fort Bragg—on the Everyday Warrior podcast as recently as last summer. After reiterating three more times that “we should change it back,” lest he wasn’t clear, he explained, “Because legacy matters. My uncle served at Bragg. I served at Bragg. It breaks a generational link.” Braxton Bragg was a Confederate general who lost most of his battles and enslaved 105 Black Americans. In Hegseth’s War on Warriors book, the former Fox News host who stands to run the U.S. military characterizes the military as anti-white and a “radical left-wing” organization.

In other news, Hegseth’s church, Pilgrim Hill Reformed Fellowship, is part of the Christian nationalist Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC), which, USA Today reported on Monday, is thrilled that Hegseth could be joining Trump’s administration. Pilgrim Hill pastoral intern Joshua Haymes recently wrote of Hegseth on social media, “Replacing degenerates with God fearing Christian men. Trump’s White House will be staffed by (at least some) faithful, God-fearing Christians who will be advising president Trump and wielding political power.” Fantastic.

Several Senate Republicans have said they expect the hearings to reach a similar level of chaos as the 2018 hearings for then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault and misconduct by several women. “I think it’s going to be Kavanaugh on steroids,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) told the Hill in December. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said he’s warned Hegseth that his hearings are “going to be a miserable experience, sort of like Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) pressured the woman who accused Hegseth to testify before the Senate during an NBC interview last month: “If people have an allegation to make, come forward and make it like they did in Kavanaugh. We’ll decide whether or not it’s credible.” In 2018, after publicly accusing Kavanaugh, Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and her family were forced to move houses amid threats and harassment.

Hegseth is accused of raping and potentially drugging a woman at a political convention in 2017. The day after the alleged rape, the woman went to an emergency room to collect a rape kit, and a nurse reported the rape to police. No charges were filed, and Hegseth and the woman privately settled. After police in November released a graphic report from the alleged incident, one GOP senator wrote it off as “two people flirting with each other.”

As a college student, Hegseth published an op-ed arguing that raping an unconscious person isn’t really rape. Sure, it was a long time ago—but he’s yet to address or apologize for the comments, all while personally meeting with senators and assuring them that he’ll help fix the military sexual assault crisis.

On top of the rape allegation, a series of damning reports have alleged that Hegseth struggled with aggressive alcoholism for years, showing up drunk to work and varying work events at his previous places of employment. He even had to promise one GOP senator that he wouldn’t drink anymore—if confirmed. This, apparently, is who Republicans want to run a $850 billion department.

There is somehow still more! Hegseth has emphatically argued that women shouldn’t be allowed in combat roles in the military. He’s been accused of fostering a sexist work environment and pursuing sexual relationships with female staffers at the veteran nonprofit groups he led. His mother once called him “an abuser of women” during his contentious divorce from his second wife, which involved extensive allegations of infidelity and mistreatment—a pretty damning characterization that can’t really be walked back, much as she’s tried.

Even at a time of steep anti-feminist backlash—which seemingly reached a crescendo when Trump, a legally recognized sexual abuser was reelected in November—I’m not sure we’re prepared for just how upsetting Hegseth’s confirmation hearings will be. Lucky for us, we have about 18 hours to mentally prepare!