Trump Defense Secretary nominee Pete Hegseth on Wednesday was asked whether he would commit to not drink on the job if the Senate confirms him to the Cabinet post.
“I had a chance to sit down with Megyn Kelly today for an hour. I refer you to that interview. She asked probably all the questions you guys would like to ask me,” Hegseth said to reporters on Capitol Hill.
“Will you commit to not drinking on the job?” CNN reporter Manu Raju shouted to Hegseth as he left the media scrum.
Hegseth told Kelly in an interview earlier that day that he would not drink if he gets the job.
“This is the biggest deployment of my life, and there won’t be a drop of alcohol on my lips while I’m doing it,” he said.
The former Fox News host met with senators on Capitol Hill as his nomination is seemingly on life support — multiple news outlets reported that several GOP senators are noncommittal on Hegseth, and Trump is reportedly considering alternatives for defense secretary, such as Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, amid Hegseth’s growing scandals. News outlets this weekend reported that Hegseth’s Fox News colleagues were concerned by his drinking, with some saying they smelled alcohol on the veteran before he went on air and that they heard him describe being hungover as he was getting ready or on set. And a woman in 2017 accused Hegseth of sexually assaulting her after a Republican women’s convention in California, according to police records that news outlets obtained late last month.
