Newsmax Host Rips Trump’s Hegseth Nomination: ‘Pete Is Blackmailable’ and ‘Hasn’t Done Nearly Enough for MAGA’

Newsmax host Greg Kelly tore into President-elect Donald Trump’s nomination for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, on Wednesday, arguing he had “serious baggage” and was not up for the job.

After praising Matt Gaetz and Pam Bondi – Trump’s former and current nominee for attorney general, respectively – Kelly said, “And that brings me to Pete Hegseth.”

He declared:

Pete Hegseth is no Matt Gaetz. He hasn’t done nearly enough for MAGA to warrant a Department of Defense job, and he’s got serious baggage. Serious baggage. It happens sometimes. Not every pick is perfect. Where do I get this stuff, by the way? Not from the fake news, but from this guy. Tim Parlatore is Hegseth’s attorney and he’s been making all kinds of statements I don’t think are particularly helpful to Hegseth.

After playing a clip of Hegseth’s mother defending her son and claiming he had changed in the years since she sent an email accusing him of being an abuser of women, Kelly reacted:

Really nice, right? But there’s some problems here. Sorry. Big time. According to Pete’s lawyer, Pete is blackmailable. Two years before that email was sent, Pete Hegseth was conferring with President Trump at Trump Tower about high-level political appointments, maybe even as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. He was at the Trump Tower, he had that conversation, and that’s fine, right? But two years later, he is blackmailed by a woman who falsely accuses him, but he pays money to her anyway. Is he a new man? Anybody can be forgiven, I know that. I know that. If you ask for forgiveness, of course. Is Hunter Biden a new man? Okay, is he?

A woman told police Hegseth raped her in 2017. Ultimately, no charges were filed, and Hegseth paid his accuser an undisclosed sum. He denies wrongdoing.

Kelly went on to argue that unlike Trump – who has also been accused of sexual assault – Hegseth had not been adequately vetted.

“Let’s talk about Trump. We’ve been vetting the guy for forty years! We know him. We voted for him. 77 million people. The scrutiny, years and years,” said Kelly. “I think we know everything about this guy. Pete Hegseth, most of us met him just the other day.”

The Newsmax host also criticized Hegseth’s history of adultery.

“When you’re in the military, there are unique rules. Uniform Code of Military Justice. That’s a special kind of set of laws that govern people in uniform, and one of them pertains to adultery,” he explained. “So with Pete, who has told people quite openly that he’s not good at being married, that’s a situation for the folks in uniform. I speak from experience.”

Kelly conceded, “I made a hell of a lot of mistakes. I am no angel. But I’m also not the nominee for secretary of defense, nor would I be.”

The Newsmax host concluded his segment by criticizing Hegseth’s support for the Iraq war, his previous “neocon” positions, and for not sufficiently defending the January 6 prisoners.

“If anybody gets a little fatigued about the truth that we utter here, I’ll remind you, we’re special and we’re better than Fox,” Kelly declared.

Watch above via Newsmax.