Republican Senator Gives Kaitlan Collins Bizarre Defense of Hegseth: If ‘You’re Still Able To Drink on the Job… Don’t Tell Me That Pete Can’t’
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) offered an unusual defense of Pete Hegseth, whom President-elect Donald Trump has nominated as Secretary of Defense.
Hegseth had a contentious Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday, as Democrats grilled him over several salacious allegations. Most notably, a woman accused Hegseth of raping her in 2017, which he denies. There has also been reporting that Hegseth had drank on the job while at Fox News, which he also denies. Moreover, he faced questions about his multiple marital infidelities.
During the hearing, Mullin defended Hegseth by claiming unnamed senators “have shown up drunk to vote at night.”
Hours later, Mullin appeared on CNN’s The Source, where Kaitlan Collins pressed him on his remarks.
“I was in that room today,” she noted. “And when you said that, I guess the thought that went through my head was, if what you’re saying is true and your colleagues do show up drinking to come to work and vote, which I think would maybe be concerning to those taxpayers who pay them, how is the bad behavior of a sitting senator a defense of someone who wants to run the Pentagon?”
“It’s not,” the senator replied before offering a strange hypothetical. “What they were saying is he was incapable of doing his job. And Kaitlan, what I was trying to get to is, if you’re capable of doing your job and you’re able to still drink on the job or late in the evening, then don’t tell me that Pete can’t. And Pete had already said he’s not going to drink, but they would just they just kept hammering it.”
Mullin insisted that Hegseth, a U.S. Army combat veteran is qualified to run the Pentagon. Collins pushed back by laying out some of the specific alcohol-related charges against the nominee.
“I mean, it wasn’t just that he had a glass of wine,” she said. “There were allegations from his former colleagues about him going out to strip clubs, having to be escorted out of parties because he had too much to drink. He denied that. But I’m just saying those were the allegations. It wasn’t just that he was seen at Cafe Milano.”
Mullin responded by saying that none of those accusations were made by people going on the record.
“I haven’t seen the names,” he said. “Pete has been adamant from day one that that is an outright lie. Now, if no one’s willing to put their name on it and no one’s willing to come forth on it, and believe me, they had plenty of time to come forth, they’ve all known this, then all it is is a smear campaign. And that’s exactly what it was.”
