'I love his charisma': Republican lauds 'man of integrity' Hegseth who will 'get rid of DEI'

Republican Senators are starting to circle the wagons around President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Defense, former Fox News weekend co-host Pete Hegseth, with one particularly loyal ultra-MAGA lawmaker praising him as a “man of integrity.”

Hegseth has faced criticism for a wide variety of allegations, including tattoos that reflect an affinity for Christian nationalism, alleged “aggressive drunkenness,” possible alcohol intoxication on the job, alleged sexual assault of a woman who attended a Republican conference with her husband and children and says she was trapped by Hegseth in his room, and alleged financial mismanagement of two charities that support veterans.

The alleged sexual assault victim “had texted her husband about her dislike for Hegseth, saying he gave off ‘creeper’ vibes,” USA TODAY reported. “Hotel footage showed them in a verbal altercation at the pool area before she led Hegseth towards his room. She later told police she didn’t know how she ended up in Hegseth’s room, but she remembered he blocked the door and took her phone, she told police. Hegseth told police at the time he was ‘buzzed’ but not drunk, though his lawyer recently claimed he was ‘visibly intoxicated’ and the woman was the ‘the aggressor in the encounter.'”

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The New Yorker alleged Hegseth that at one of the veterans’ charities, Hegseth “was frequently intoxicated on the job and contributed to a hostile workplace due to sexual misconduct,” USA Today also reported.

“A previously undisclosed whistle-blower report on Hegseth’s tenure as the president of Concerned Veterans for America, from 2013 until 2016, describes him as being repeatedly intoxicated while acting in his official capacity—to the point of needing to be carried out of the organization’s events,” The New Yorker also reported. “The detailed seven-page report—which was compiled by multiple former C.V.A. employees and sent to the organization’s senior management in February, 2015—states that, at one point, Hegseth had to be restrained while drunk from joining the dancers on the stage of a Louisiana strip club, where he had brought his team.”

“The report also says that Hegseth, who was married at the time, and other members of his management team sexually pursued the organization’s female staffers, whom they divided into two groups—the ‘party girls’ and the ‘not party girls.’ In addition, the report asserts that, under Hegseth’s leadership, the organization became a hostile workplace that ignored serious accusations of impropriety, including an allegation made by a female employee that another employee on Hegseth’s staff had attempted to sexually assault her at the Louisiana strip club. In a separate letter of complaint, which was sent to the organization in late 2015, a different former employee described Hegseth being at a bar in the early-morning hours of May 29, 2015, while on an official tour through Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, drunkenly chanting ‘Kill All Muslims! Kill All Muslims!’ ”

One Republican U.S. Senator, Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, on Sunday said he did not see Hegseth’s drinking as a problem.

Monday afternoon, U.S. Senator Roger Marshall (R-KS) declared that Hegseth is a “good man,” and a “man of integrity” who absolutely has his support.

“I think that these anonymous character assassinations by the media are way over-reported,” Marshall insisted.

Fox News host John Roberts interjected, saying, “but some of them weren’t anonymous.”

“Well, the ones that I’ve seen are anonymous,” Marshall claimed, before insisting Hegseth will be a good Secretary of Defense.

“The people elected President Trump for transformational changes,” Marshall claimed. “Pete is gonna get rid of the DEI business going on in the military. He’s going to reward people for their merits that our warfighters out there aren’t afraid who’s standing beside them when the bullets are pouring down.”

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“Look, Pete has my full throated support,” Marshall also said. “I think that what I love about Pete, first of all, is his heart, that he has a heart of a warfighter and he’s more focused on those enlisted soldiers than he is on this industrial military complex of Washington, D.C.”

“I love his charisma,” he continued. “I love his ability to communicate.”

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