Joe Scarborough Issues Scathing Takedown Of ‘Woefully Ill-Equipped’ Pete Hegseth: ‘Let’s Not Get Numb to the Reality Here’

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough launched a scathing takedown of President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary pick, Pete Hegseth, warning viewers not to “get numb to the reality” that the nominee was “woefully ill-equipped” for the role.

Several allegations have emerged against Hegseth since Trump announced his intention to nominate the former Fox & Friends Weekend host. These include accusations of sexual assault and workplace alcoholism, which Hegseth has denied.

With news that Hegseth is touring Capitol Hill on Wednesday to build support for his nomination ahead of confirmation hearings, Scarborough blasted him for lacking the experience to lead the department.

Let’s not get numb to the reality here. The person that we are looking at right now is woefully ill- equipped to become Secretary of Defense. Does not have any managerial experience that would allow him to run the largest and most complex, the most important, critically important, bureaucracy in the United States of America or the world. As the Middle East dissolves and melts down, as a war in eastern Europe threatens to move towards a nuclear confrontation or a World War. That’s where we start.

Pivoting to the allegations against Hegseth since the announcement of his nomination, Scarborough argued allegations against Hegseth underlined he was not suited for the job.

And then you start stacking up one allegation after another, where the allegation is about financial mismanagement. Whether the allegation is about a chronic abuse of women – that allegation, of course, underlined in a letter his own mother wrote to him. Whether you’re talking about taking successful VA organizations and running them into the ground, whether you’re talking about claim after claim after claim of the sort of inappropriate behavior that Joni Ernst claims to be a champion of in stopping in the United States military.

And speaking of Joni Ernst and Tammy Duckworth and so many other women that have made heroic contributions to the United States of America through armed combat, he still sounds like a hard no on women in combat. This is not the 1950s. And again, take all of that and put it to the side. The fact that any senator could stand up and confidently say, oh yes, Pete Hegseth is exactly the sort of person that should run the DOD, that says so much about the complete lack of responsibility that the senators that are saying this publicly are taking in their extraordinarily important jobs.

Watch above on MSNBC.