Piers Morgan hosts a panel where Michael Knowles defends Pete Hegseth's nomination as Defense Secretary against Wajahat Ali's allegations of extremism, sexual impropriety, and alcoholism. While Julia Roginski critiques Hegseth's Fox News tenure regarding his views on unconscious women, Dave Rubin argues his military background and anti-DEI stance make him ideal for reforming the department. The debate highlights deep divisions over Hegseth's qualifications, linking his potential appointment to broader cultural conflicts between meritocracy and diversity initiatives within the US government. [Automatically generated summary]
Will Senator Marco Rubio make America safe again as Secretary of State?
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Do you want me to debate all this?
The host of The Michael Knowles Show on Daily Wire, Michael Knowles.
Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report.
Wajahat Ali.
The host of Democracy-ish.
And Julia Roginski, the Democrat strategist and author of the Salty Politics newsletter.
OK, well, welcome to all of you.
A stellar panel, if I may say so.
And Happy New Year to you all.
Let me start with Dave Rubin.
I watched most of Pete Hegseth's stuff yesterday.
And all I kept thinking to myself, I've got a lot of military in my family.
My brother was a British Army colonel.
My sister married a British Army colonel.
My grandfather was a decorated commando.
My great-uncle was a decorated war hero, and so on.
So I watched with great interest, thinking one thing.
If I was in the US military, would I feel good or bad about what I heard from Pete Hegseth?
And I concluded I'd be pretty happy that I had a guy there who not only had served his country for a long period, With great personal courage himself, but seemed to really understand what is required from the military and also seemed to pride actual meritocracy over mediocrity or virtue signaling or box ticking or DEI or any of these things.
And I thought, yeah, if I'm in the US military, I think I'd probably like this guy being at the top of the pyramid.
And I can speak as someone that's on this side of the pond, that I have friends and family in the military, and they're happy about this, too.
You know, there's two things going on with Hegseth here, despite the, I would say, hysterical virtue signaling of some of the senators that you just showed there.
The things are that he's qualified.
There's very little question about his qualifications.
But the other thing that I think is really allowing him to shine right now is his decade-plus time at Fox News, where he is able, as a TV presenter, that's what he...
He's been and a talk show host.
He's able to communicate these ideas clearly when he went out of his way to talk about equality and not equity and that we should have meritocracy and its qualifications that should matter.
These are all of the important things that we need to reintegrate not only into the military in America, very obviously, instead of lowering our standards and caring about skin color and genitals and sexuality, but we need to reintegrate it across all of our institutions.
That's the work for the broader Trump.
Well, we also know he's going to pass.
I mean, Thune, who's the majority leader, has already said it.
I mean, it's basically a done deal already.
But I think he's going to reform the military very quickly.
And I think we're going to get back to having a functioning military that people can be proud of, rather than counting, you know, how many lesbian generals that wear dog collars we have.
I'm not going to bring that allegation to the fore before we have a Senate inquiry.
Let me go to Bajahat.
Bajahat, I mean, I've heard the criticisms about Pete Higgs.
I know him a bit from when I've done stuff on Fox.
He's always been perfectly good to me and always, I thought, a very good performer on television.
But I also thought that under fire yesterday, and some of you got a bit personal and ferocious, he conducted himself calmly.
He seemed very well informed.
He clearly has some opinions about the military which others may not share.
But I certainly didn't get a feeling of somebody out of his depth.
And when you actually look at people who've held that job in the past, yes, some have been generals, but they can be pretty intransigent sometimes in their view about how things should be.
And some have not been generals and are imminently less qualified than Pete Heggs said.
Look, I know that Republicans actually like affirmative action because they're perfectly fine with mediocre MAGA men and lowering the standards to the point where Pete Hexeth, the Fox News host, can slither under it.
And B, the Secretary of Defense.
For people who don't know, the Secretary of Defense overlooks a budget of over $900 billion, 3 million people.
He is responsible in particular for defense policymaking.
We're talking about law and order, national security.
You're going to give it to Pete Hexeth, a man who was in the National Army Guard, his fellow colleague.
In the guard, looked at his tattoos and actually reported him to be an insider threat because it was so extreme.
This is a man who wrote a book called American Crusade.
In his book, Pete Hex had said, I am too extreme for the U.S. military.
In his book, Pete Hex had said, I support these militias, these paramilitary forces.
In his book, he calls the enemies liberals extremists.
So much for unity.
This is a man, not just adultery, but sexual impropriety.
He has been alleged of sexual impropriety and sexual assault.
If he has nothing to hide, release the woman that he has signed to an NDA and paid off.
Let her tell her story.
This is a man whose own mother sent one of the most damning emails I have ever heard and read in my life.
If your mother sends the email that Pete Hex's mother said you have failed in life, accusing him of being a sexual abuser, a man whose own Fox colleagues Have said allegedly in the New York Times that they're worried about his alcoholism and alcohol problem and a man who has economic impropriety allegations.
He was released from two non-profits.
What are we doing here, Piers?
Listen, with Marco Rubio, I disagree with him.
You don't see me here complaining.
Qualified guy, intelligent guy, Secretary of State, fine.
Pete Hegseth, as Secretary of Defense, what are we doing?
You guys are putting lipsticks on a pig, and you're making America less safe.
And the right wing in MAGA is doing this for Pete Hegseth.
You're making this country less safe just because you're bending the knee to Donald Trump, and he wants a lapdog, who, by the way, I'll agree with Dave on this, who's good on TV. So that's what we're going to do.
We're going to trade our national security for Pete Hegseth, release the woman from the NDA. I want to hear from the woman.
Secretary of Defense, let's defend women for Pete Hegseth.
I'm a change agent and a threat to them because Donald Trump was willing to choose me, to empower me, to bring the Defense Department back to what it really should be, which is warfighting.
So I'm willing to endure these attacks, but what I will do is stand up for the truth and for my reputation.
False attacks, anonymous attacks, repeated ad nauseum, printed ad nauseum, as facts, we have provided to the committee, Mr. Chairman, and I know you're going to share.
On the record statement after on the record statement from people who have served with me, worked with me at Fox News, Concerned Vets, Vets for Freedom, you name it.
From the top of the chain to the bottom, who will say I treat them with respect, with kindness, with dignity.
There's a police report where I sexually assaulted a woman and I signed her to an NDA. In America, that kind of settlement is not uncommon, is my point.
Just generally, in the American system, a lot of things get settled that way without any admission of liability or wrongdoing, which is the case with Pete Heggson.
Well, so much of what Wajahat just said is not true, or as you point out, Pierce, is completely unsubstantiated, like the allegations that Pete Hegseth shows up trying to work.
Excuse me one second, Wajahat.
I've been on that morning show with Pete a number of times.
I've been in studio with him a number of times.
The only thing you could accuse Pete of is being too alert and energetic.
I found it overwhelming, actually, while I was there, tired, trying to dust the sand out of my eyes.
But you suggest that the graduate of Princeton and Harvard, who for decades has been in the...
U.S. military served his country honorably, that he's somehow unqualified to work at the Pentagon.
The most egregious accusation you make against him, though, is that he's an extremist because he has a tattoo.
The tattoos, specifically, I did not make the allegation that he's an extremist.
it was actually you repeated the allegations so what's the title as an insider threat yeah right so what's the title i can tell you it says he was his fellow simple question what is this tattoo that you're so upset about i wasn't the one upset about it i I was talking about his fellow colleague.
This is exactly what I said.
Do you know what he was?
In the U.S. Army, called him out.
As a potential insider threat, looking at the tattoos on his chest.
The tattoo in question is called a Jerusalem cross.
This is a medieval Christian symbol, goes back a long time.
In fact, at Jimmy Carter's funeral, there was a Jerusalem cross on the floor of the cathedral and on the program for the funeral.
There's one other tattoo that some have suggested could be extremist.
It's the phrase deus volt, which is a medieval Christian slogan, a long traditional slogan that refers to God's will and goes back a long way.
These are very traditional, very mainstream Christian symbols that not only are not extreme in any way, but which even the people who want to accuse him of extremism couldn't possibly name.
I'll tell you what, before you answer, I know you said in your sub stack about this, under normal circumstances, he, Pete Hexteth, would be precluded from serving...
Let me go back to something that was said in the very beginning, that he spent more than 10 years at Fox News, and that's what qualifies him to be in this position that he wants to be in.
I spent more than 10 years at Fox News.
I don't think I'm qualified to run the DoD whatsoever.
If I were not bound by an NDA and Fox News wanted to release me from that NDA, I could tell you about my time with Pete Hexeth.
Unfortunately, that's not possible.
But I will say that the reason that there are so many people who anonymously came forward at Fox News is that because they're also bound by confidentiality provisions, which one-third of all American workers need to sign on their first day of work.
And if they were to go public, they could get sued.
The reason this accuser is not heard from is because, according to The New Yorker, She tried desperately to meet with Joni Ernst on the committee, and Joni Ernst turned her down.
So the reason that she has not been able to come out publicly is because she has an NDA, and even privately, she could not meet with a senator on this committee who is also a rape survivor to share her story, because that rape survivor did not want to hear from a woman who was going to put her potentially in a position to vote against Pete Hexeth.
Pete Hexeth has written himself while at Princeton.
Saying that women who are passed out, if you have sex with them while they're unconscious, that's not really rape.
Right?
Now, the American military has a tremendous sexual assault problem.
A horrible sexual assault problem.
I have spoken to women in the military who say on deployment, it's not a question of if, but a question of when they will be sexually assaulted.
You cannot possibly have somebody running our military.
Who has said that women who are unconscious deserve to be raped because it's not really rape.
The Crusade began because the Eastern Emperor asked for help from the Western Pope because the Seljuk Turks were slaughtering Christians in the Holy Land.
Because those lands were Christian before the Muslims invaded in the 7th century.
- No, no, no, those crusades-- - Good to know Michael's pro-crusade. - Listen, those lands-- - You get along really well with Keith Nexeth. - Those lands became Christian after the first crusade, okay?
So let's be very clear.
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The lands were Christian in the first and second centuries, and then the Muslims...
I cannot even believe that something the Vatican apologized for is something you're defending, which is the slaughter of Jews and Muslims during the Crusades.
And there's certainly been a growing sense of DEI invading almost every aspect of American life, society, culture and so on, including the military.
I thought he landed some pretty effective points on that as well.
And coming at a time when you see...
People like Mark Zuckerberg, who were leading the kind of charge of DEI and liberal woke policy, now doing these screeching U-turns, recognising that actually it wasn't right.
It wasn't fair.
It wasn't equitable.
It effectively has collectively encouraged mediocrity over meritocracy and so on.
Oh, I thought he was quite effective because he is a TV presenter and knows how to communicate ideas effectively.
He has been well-versed in interviewing people and discussing this and talking to people inside the military and inside of all of our institutions and corporations that have been wrecked and ransacked by DEI. The idea of America is based on individual rights.
We do not care about your sexuality or your gender or your skin color or any of those other immutable traits.
We all, regardless, I think, of political allegiance, would like to be effective and be able to protect Americans and American interests.
We want people who are competent, who are physically fit and mentally fit to do these jobs.
I mean, there's a million examples I can give you here, Piers, but we only need to look at what's going on with the California fires right now and the amount of time that the fire department and the administration and Gavin Newsom and the mayor and L.A. and California as a whole spent On diversity in the fire department, rather than figuring out ways to go about combating fire properly and preventing these things.
And that's the exact same thing that the military is going through.
It's, by the way, exactly what Mark Zuckerberg was going through at Facebook, where he was dealing with an insurrection of his own employees who were woke and trying to silence everybody and the rest of it.