‘Significant number of senators who don’t want to confront this’: Buck on Hegseth

we begin with NBC News senior Capitol Hill correspondent Garrett H NBC News Pentagon correspondent Courtney Kuby who's been broking so many of these stories Washington Post National editor Phil Rucker and former press secretary to Republican house speakers Boehner and Ryan Brendan Buck quitney first to you uh you wrote the story about the drinking concerns at Fox News what more did you learn yeah Andre and it comes on the heels of a number of different stories with Al allegations and accusations about character con concerns regarding Pete heg Seth so of course we've heard about uh allegations

that he was involved in a sexual potential sexual assault of course he he there was a payment to the woman who made that claim there were never any charges filed there's also been concerns about financial mismanagement we heard about that in the New Yorker article over the weekend from his time when he was working for a nonprofit for that um advocated for veterans and then there have been a number of different cases and instances where former colleagues of him have talked about his excessive drinking of course the New Yorker talked about it during his time

at that veterans advocacy group but now we are learning according to these 10 current and former Fox News employees that there was a lot of concern about his time while he was serving as a host of the popular weekend show Fox and Friends now these individuals told us about cases where he would show up literally only minutes before the show would begin at 6:00 a.m. on the weekends at times he would still be hung over from the night before sometimes talking about how he had barely slept or not slept at all and there were even

inst es when he would come in still smelling of alcohol from being out the night before these these cases and these these circumstances caused additional stress and pressure on these people some of them telling us again these are people who worked closely with him saying that it caused additional stress stress and pressure on the show on his colleagues and that some of them telling us in fact it should be disqualifying his excessive drinking now as you mentioned the Trump transition team completely denied these allegations saying that they are false um but as we as you

also said Andrea we have 10 individuals who worked with him current and former employees who are telling us a very clear and and common narrative about a series a pattern of behavior that occurred over the course of years while he was in that job and Garrett heth's political future certainly seems in Jeopardy disantis confirmation would be a lot easier there others but there are still bitter feelings towards the sandis inside Trump World take us through that yeah I mean two separate issues here really Andrea on the the santis part of it I think you know

Donald Trump sort of famously loves a convert if Ronda santis is willing to take a job with Donald Trump I think Trump himself would probably be willing to give him one I think it's likely that there's more hard feelings between the staffs including someone like Susie WS who you know had been forced out of the sanz's inner circle before she went back to work for Trump this last time there's just not a lot of good feeling between their two political operations right now now of course that only matters if Heth withdraws his nomination or is

told to withdraw it by Donald Trump and I don't think that's at all clear at this moment Trump likes a fighter and what we're seeing I think for today from heg including In that clip you showed uh just a moment ago and the fact that he's sitting down for at least one interview today with Megan Kelly is that he is doing more fighting on his own behalf today even had his mother appearing on Fox news this morning to dispute or clean up the episode about the email she had sent to him back in 2018 suggesting

he Abused Women at that time here's what she said on Fox today we all believe in him we really believe that he is not that man he was seven years ago Pete is a a new person he's redeemed forgiven changed I think we all are after seven years uh I believe he's the man for the job so Andrea probably helpful to get that out into the conservative media ecosystem on a channel that will be seen by many of these Senators but I think it's worth saying that just having your mom back in your corner is

not clearing an especially High bar towards confirmation uh to a senate confirmed position like Secretary of Defense and Andrea I'll add one other note on the expanding Trump team here uh Peter Navaro former trade adviser to Donald Trump will once again be a trade adviser to Donald Trump he just announced on Truth social this morning of course went to prison for uh contemp of Congress refusing to talk to the January 6 committee he's out he's back on the Trump team and he will be back in the new Trump White House we learned today and he

didn't only do trade because he got deeply involved in countering a lot of the advice from the CDC on covid and coming up with you know some of the the the really uh strange concoctions that were marketed and purchased by the US government for the to the tune of millions and millions of dollars which were harmful if and not at all uh cures for covid uh against all advice you're on a variety of subjects yes uh gett thank you so much Phil Rucker let's talk about the FBI because the Trump transition has finally agreed they've

signed theou the agreements to let the FBI do background checks on his choices they would almost certainly have uncovered this the the widespread drinking allegations because I've know this I've been asked by the FBI questions about people I know do you think that they are you know would be good for service and the FBI asks you you know do they drink too much do you know they take drugs you know of any reasons why they would not be good well it would be the first or the second question and it would come to this many

uh colleagues who've talked to Courtney Kuby and to others about his drinking habits alleged drinking habits the question is why do you think they now agreed to it are they beginning to see that maybe that private security firm is not doing such a good job on Matt Gates and Pete hexek could save them a lot of grief yeah I certainly that that could be one reason why they agreed to uh permit these FBI background checks but it's also notable that uh key Senators including um the Senate Republican leader John th of South Dakota have been

saying that they think it's essential uh that these nominees in the formal nomination process which will take place once the new Senate is and the president has sworn in in January that these background checks be a part of that process and so um you know we've seen Trump Rush very quickly in the days after the election to start to name uh the members of his cabinet without going through the kind of formal and elongated uh background check uh check vetting process that normally would be a part of a presidential transition but now letting the FBI

conduct these checks will will really more thoroughly vet uh these candidates especially those who are going to have National Security portfolios and require those security clearances and be making a lot of key decisions uh that affect the US and the world yeah certainly will speed up the confirmation process because those hearings can begin uh Brandon when running for the nomination to Santa's military plan was to quote rip the woke out of the military it's also ripping a lot out of Donald Trump which is not fully forgiven by some of the people working for Donald Trump

but what does that mean in terms of the Maga agenda if DeSantis were to become the next nominee or the next choice I should say for defense secretary well it's actually quite consistent with what Pete hex has been saying in that way it's an easy swap because uh Pete hex has talked at length about how he thinks that the the defense department has has has been too weak and has not been focused enough on on the fighting Mission um I think this would be one of the most popular things in the Senate Donald Trump has

ever done if he were to swap this out at this point it's clear that you have a significant number of Senators who just don't want to confront this they don't want to have to take a vote and it probably would never get to that um on on a popular Fox News uh figure I mean at this point you have Senators Kevin Kramer earlier was openly musing about how he he would be happy to vote for Sen Senator Ernst somebody who's not been nominated for for this path like there are a lot of questions that are

can continue to be asked this is not going to get necessarily any easier for Pete hex once you're this wounded it's pretty difficult to to make a comeback and look the Senate is not the center of the resistance but enough of these folks are at least showing they're not going to be complete pushovers either if there are questions about his treatment of women if there are questions about his substance use if there are questions about his financial mismanagement if there are questions about his experience and ability to actually do this job there are going to

be a number of senors who are going to want real answers to that um and we're seeing that with their their desire to get those FBI uh background checks they're taking this process seriously and that's not a great sign for people like this who don't have a lot of uh experience to to back up or Goodwill with those Senators uh to stand on at this moment and but it's still it's still a fairly closely divided Senate you know they're in better shape than some might have thought they would be but uh what about Joanie ernston

and Senator Hagerty is there a risk in putting one of those people in uh I don't think so I think they obviously be pretty easily confirmed I don't think anybody's ever denied one of their colleagues being confirmed and with with the Senate uh Governors there could could just appoint somebody relatively quickly unlike in the house where you'd have to have special elections and have vacancies for a long time this be a relatively easy process and I think a lot of senators would uh breathe a sigh of relief for