Reporter Shouts Brutal Question at Trump Pick Hegseth in Crowded Hallway Scrum: ‘Will You Commit to Not Drinking on the Job?’

As Pete Hegseth — President-elect Donald Trump’s embattled nominee to run the Department of Defense — turned to leave after giving remarks to reporters on Wednesday, one reporter shouted an absolutely brutal question at him.

Hegseth’s nomination has been endangered by bombshells like a rape allegation and a 2018 email from Penelope Hegseth to her son in which she called him “an abuser of women,” as well as a devastating whistleblower report.

Wednesday saw Hegseth make a trip to Capitol Hill to try and rally support for his nomination, while his mother sat for a very friendly Fox News interview.

On Wednesday afternoon’s edition of CNN News Central, co-anchors Phil Mattingly and Brianna Keilar cut away to a crowded press scrum on the Hill, where Hegseth gave remarks, then referred reporters to his Megyn Kelly interview.

But one reporter just had to know:

PETE HEGSETH: A wonderful process to go through and meet with senators and talk to them, especially members of the Senate Armed Services Committee, whose passion is the Defense Department and our warfighters to hear what they want to do to make sure that department is properly oriented for the threats of the world and make sure that we’re putting the warfighters first.

That’s what Donald Trump asked me to do. Your job is to bring a war-fighting ethos back to the Pentagon. Your job is to make sure that it’s lethality, lethality, lethality.

Everything else is gone. Everything else that distracts from that shouldn’t be happening. That’s the message I’m hearing from senators in that advise and consent process. It’s been a wonderful process as far as everything else.

I had a chance to sit down with Megan Kelly today for an hour. I refer you to that interview. She asked probably all the questions you guys would like to ask.

REPORTER: Will you commit to not drinking? Will you commit to not drinking on the job?

BRIANNA KEILAR: (LAUGHS) I’m sure that we can think of a few more

Watch above via CNN News Central.