The Charlie Kirk Show - Unraveling the Lies About Pete Hegseth

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody!

00:00:00.000 The Red Line is Pete Hegseth.

00:00:03.000 An update on how Pete Hegseth is doing, what that means, and the curious tale of Joni Ernst.

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00:01:26.000 Buckle up, everybody.

00:01:27.000 Here we go.

00:01:28.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

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00:02:26.000 It is a breaking and busy news day today.

00:02:29.000 A lot happening right now on the Hill, the U.S. Senate, as the future of Pete Hegseth and President Trump's nominees hang in the balance.

00:02:38.000 And it's a bigger question.

00:02:39.000 The question in front of us is, will the Senate be able to have a pocket veto to be able to tell the president, no, we're in charge, you're not in charge?

00:02:47.000 It is an ongoing question.

00:02:50.000 As Pete Hegseth, who should become the Secretary of Defense as an honorable and brave and great man, a patriotic man, will be able to survive the thicket of Senate Republicans.

00:03:03.000 At the center of all this is an extraordinary test case and somebody that we have not really focused on this program at all over the last couple of years.

00:03:13.000 Enter Joni Ernst.

00:03:15.000 Joni Ernst is a senator from Iowa. 0.92

00:03:18.000 Joni Ernst ran as a rebel, as an outsider.

00:03:22.000 Joni Ernst ran as someone that was going to try to change the business-as-usual process in Washington, D.C., Now, I've actually never met Joni.

00:03:32.000 It's one of the few senators I have never had a chance to meet.

00:03:34.000 I don't know her.

00:03:35.000 I can't speak to her character, how she is.

00:03:37.000 I'm sure she's very pleasant and very polite.

00:03:40.000 Joni Ernst, though, has largely flown below the radar.

00:03:43.000 She does not pick big fights. 0.96

00:03:44.000 She goes with leadership.

00:03:46.000 She is a neocon.

00:03:47.000 Joni Ernst believes in invading the world and inviting the world.

00:03:51.000 Joni Ernst is of the mold of Liz Cheney, And in fact, she palled around with Nikki Haley during this last primary.

00:04:00.000 She showed Nikki Haley around at the Iowa State Fair.

00:04:04.000 Joni Ernst, of course, has now made good, allegedly, with the Trump campaign and came and endorsed and all that.

00:04:10.000 But make no mistake, this is a Liz Cheney type of foreign policy policy.

00:04:17.000 Politician in the U.S. Senate.

00:04:19.000 Joni Ernst herself wants to have Pete Hegseth's job. 1.00

00:04:22.000 It's the worst kept secret in Washington, D.C. Joni Ernst wants to become the Secretary of Defense.

00:04:27.000 And since she wants to become the Secretary of Defense, she has launched a very nasty, below the surface campaign to try and torpedo and thwart Pete Hegseth. 0.97

00:04:38.000 And with that, go against President Trump.

00:04:41.000 Joni Ernst So Joni Ernst Is now being flushed out and

00:05:11.000 is being singled out as being the reason why all of a sudden Hegseth is having all these difficulties.

00:05:18.000 This is Joni Ernst, who was asked a question today of whether or not she supports Pete Hegseth becoming the Secretary of Defense.

00:05:27.000 Play cut 108. Will you support his nomination?

00:05:33.000 Well, I did have a very long, lengthy discussion with Pete yesterday, and I do appreciate his service to the nation.

00:05:42.000 I also am a combat veteran.

00:05:45.000 So we talked about a number of those issues, and we will continue with the vetting process.

00:05:51.000 I think that that is incredibly important.

00:05:54.000 So again, all I'm saying is we had a very frank and productive discussion, Back, back it up.

00:06:05.000 Hold on a second.

00:06:06.000 Wait, what is your objection then?

00:06:08.000 That is military cabal doublespeak.

00:06:10.000 And for the great patriots in Iowa, I hope you are listening carefully because you are not being represented well by Senator Ernst.

00:06:18.000 Basically, she is defending a deep state at the Department of Defense.

00:06:22.000 However, hold on a second.

00:06:24.000 She won't commit to vote for Pete Hegseth.

00:06:26.000 But do you know who she did vote for?

00:06:28.000 And she wasn't alone.

00:06:29.000 Let's put 109 up on screen.

00:06:31.000 This is Joni Ernst's boy.

00:06:34.000 This is Joni Ernst's man right there.

00:06:37.000 Boom! 0.99

00:06:37.000 Center stage. 0.99

00:06:38.000 Lloyd Austin.

00:06:41.000 Joni Ernst voted for that man.

00:06:44.000 Wearing three masks.

00:06:48.000 Walking through, I think it was the Philippines.

00:06:50.000 But do you remember when he was hospitalized and his chief of staff didn't tell the president for several days?

00:06:56.000 And of course, he also oversaw purging thousands of experienced troops to pursue a politically motivated vaccine mandate.

00:07:03.000 One of which, where Joni Ernst did not fight the fact that tens of thousands of troops got kicked out of the military for not wanting to take the COVID shot.

00:07:13.000 That is Joni Ernst.

00:07:15.000 Now, Joni Ernst is not saying one way or the other, but this is the new playbook of what the Senate is trying to do.

00:07:20.000 The Senate is trying to stop Trump's agenda before it gets to a vote.

00:07:25.000 Now, Lloyd Austin, who Joni Ernst voted for, and so did Deb Fischer and Hoven and Lankford and Roger Wicker and John Thune, they all voted for Lloyd Austin.

00:07:37.000 That man up on screen.

00:07:38.000 They all gave Biden his boy.

00:07:42.000 They all gave Joe Biden his defense secretary.

00:07:45.000 They all gave Joe Biden his secretary of defense.

00:07:49.000 His secretary of state.

00:07:51.000 However, when it comes to Pete Hegseth, they come up with all of this, well, you know, there's a lot of accusations.

00:07:58.000 What accusations bother you?

00:07:59.000 Oh, no, what bothers you, and now we're getting down to the essence, is that Pete Hegseth is focused on the U.S. military on lethality, lethality, lethality.

00:08:09.000 Ooh, Joni Ernst doesn't like that.

00:08:10.000 She wants bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy. 0.99

00:08:15.000 Do you see the difference?

00:08:16.000 Pete Hegseth wants lethality, lethality, lethality.

00:08:20.000 Joni Ernst wants bureaucracy, bureaucracy, bureaucracy. 0.86

00:08:25.000 Here's a little bit of a gaggle of around the horn of Lindsey Graham. 1.00

00:08:31.000 of Roger Wicker, who is the chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, of them all kind of going around the horn.

00:08:37.000 Let's play cut 99. There are questions that some members have, and we're going to be working for an answer.

00:08:46.000 Are you among the members who have questions?

00:08:48.000 Well, I'm looking to be supportive.

00:08:51.000 The articles I've read?

00:08:52.000 Yeah, there's a number concerning.

00:08:54.000 I don't know if it's true or not.

00:08:56.000 But he'll go through the process.

00:08:57.000 He'll be asked about it.

00:08:59.000 We'll see what happens.

00:09:00.000 I'm being careful until I hear everything.

00:09:02.000 I've never had a chance to talk with him or meet with him yet.

00:09:06.000 And I think that's all part of the very important process.

00:09:09.000 Okay, but you notice none of them gave that kind of double talk to any Biden's defense nominees?

00:09:14.000 In fact, we pulled up the roll call of Joe Biden's nominee Lloyd Austin.

00:09:20.000 Do you know that Lloyd Austin, that joke to our country, he received 93 votes from the U.S. Senate and only two no votes?

00:09:28.000 Do you know the only two no votes were Josh Hawley and Mike Lee?

00:09:31.000 And then there were five people that weren't there, that were just absent.

00:09:35.000 Ninety-three yes votes.

00:09:39.000 93. Pete Heggseth, if he survives, will probably be at 50 or at 51. Why is it that Republican senators are so excited and move fast to give Joe Biden his nominees, but Republican senators don't want to give Donald Trump his nominees?

00:09:55.000 What is going on here?

00:09:57.000 Well, we're going to keep on naming the names and tell you more about the folklore of Joni Ernst and Roger Wicker.

00:10:03.000 And Deb Fischer.

00:10:04.000 And this is the red line.

00:10:06.000 This is not a joke, everybody.

00:10:08.000 The funding is already being put together.

00:10:10.000 Donors are calling like crazy.

00:10:12.000 Primaries are going to be launched.

00:10:14.000 The old RNC, the old way of doing things is dead, okay?

00:10:18.000 You think that we at Turning Point Action, Turning Point PAC are just going to kind of wrestle on our laurels?

00:10:22.000 No, no, no, no.

00:10:23.000 Again, if you support the president's agenda, you're good.

00:10:26.000 You're marked safe from a primary.

00:10:29.000 You go up against Pete Hegseth, the president, repeatedly, then don't be surprised, Joni Ernst, all of a sudden you get a primary challenge in Iowa.

00:10:38.000 Don't be surprised, Mike Rounds, when you get a primary challenge.

00:10:41.000 And guess what?

00:10:42.000 We might be successful in doing so.

00:10:45.000 We don't get a mandate like this from the American people just to have it thwarted by a bunch of dorks that we never heard of from the U.S. Senate, twiddling their thumbs and protecting the war machine.

00:10:55.000 Done.

00:10:56.000 And if we have to fire you through a primary, that is what we will have to do.

00:11:00.000 Hey, everybody, Charlie Kirk here.

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00:12:04.000 So let me just go back in time here and play a piece of tape from when Joni Ernst originally ran for the U.S. Senate.

00:12:12.000 This was way back in 2014. And oh, how things change.

00:12:16.000 And yes, of course, I mean, she looks differently now.

00:12:17.000 Everyone looks different being in D.C. But it's just the whole vibe of her race in 2014 is that I'm an outsider.

00:12:24.000 I'm ready to go shake things up.

00:12:26.000 We're going to go make them squeal. 0.98

00:12:28.000 We had such high hopes for Joni Ernst.

00:12:30.000 We had high hopes for a lot of these people.

00:12:32.000 And they go on a mission and they go on a mandate to try and represent voters, and it turns out they just end up being part of the system.

00:12:41.000 Playcut 116. I'm Joni Ernst.

00:12:44.000 I grew up castrating hogs on an Iowa farm.

00:12:47.000 So when I get to Washington, I'll know how to cut pork.

00:12:51.000 Joni Ernst, mother, soldier, conservative.

00:12:54.000 My parents taught us to live within our means.

00:12:57.000 It's time to force Washington to do the same.

00:13:00.000 To cut wasteful spending, repeal Obamacare, and balance the budget.

00:13:05.000 I'm Joni Ernst, and I approve this message because Washington's full of big spenders.

00:13:10.000 Let's make them squeal. 1.00

00:13:13.000 That was the ad back in 2014. It went very viral.

00:13:16.000 Everyone was very excited about Miss Joni Ernst.

00:13:18.000 Oh, she's going to make him squeal. 0.97

00:13:19.000 She's going to go fight for us. 1.00

00:13:21.000 Turns out that she was just like Liz Cheney and John McCain and the whole brigade. 0.99

00:13:25.000 All Nikki Haley wing of the Republican Party.

00:13:29.000 I don't know if she's a pleasant person or a mean person. 0.67

00:13:32.000 I can't speak to her personal character.

00:13:33.000 Did you know that Shelley Moore Capito from West Virginia, Susan Collins... 1.00

00:13:38.000 Susan Collins has a get-out-of-jail-free card for me.

00:13:42.000 She can do whatever she wants.

00:13:43.000 Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan all voted for Alejandro Mayorkas, but they have questions about Pete Hegseth.

00:13:53.000 So, Joe Biden's Lloyd Austin got 93 yes votes and Hegseth is going to have to be a squeaker.

00:14:03.000 It's because Senate Republicans, many of whom, are more loyal to the regime and more loyal to the DC cabal to the mafia than to their voters.

00:14:18.000 And one of the things, again, this is not playtime here.

00:14:22.000 We've been talking about this for quite some time.

00:14:24.000 It is time for Turning Point Action and, yes, Turning Point PAC. We are going to be launching some primaries, and we do not know what states yet.

00:14:34.000 But we're going to measure twice, and we're going to cut once.

00:14:37.000 And, you know, people say, oh, Charlie, they're going to come after you guys.

00:14:40.000 Hold on, hold on, hold on.

00:14:42.000 The Rana fight, we've been through this a couple times.

00:14:46.000 It would have come after us.

00:14:47.000 Come on, bring it in.

00:14:48.000 Get in line.

00:14:51.000 And by the way, the MAGA faithful, they want this.

00:14:57.000 So maybe it's going to be Mr. Crapo or Rish in Idaho.

00:15:01.000 Maybe we're going to primary Mike Rounds.

00:15:04.000 Maybe it's going to be Joni Ernst.

00:15:06.000 Maybe it'll be Tom Tillis in North Carolina.

00:15:08.000 He's been behaving better because of the threat.

00:15:12.000 But none of this conversation would be necessary.

00:15:15.000 I wouldn't have to be like this.

00:15:16.000 I don't want to have to do this if every one of them said we're voting for President Trump's nominees.

00:15:22.000 But if we're going to go play patty cake and have to try to cut deals to get our secretary of defense, in fact, that's what somebody said is, well, Trump's going to have to cut a deal.

00:15:32.000 Cut a deal to get our sec def?

00:15:34.000 What planet are you living on?

00:15:37.000 That's like an easy voice vote, get it done, day one, January 20 or 21, 22, you get your secretary of defense.

00:15:44.000 Oh, we're going to have to cut a deal?

00:15:47.000 No, we're not going to put up with that.

00:15:50.000 And these Senate Republicans, it's not as if that they're senators from the blue states.

00:15:55.000 We're not going to primary Susan Collins.

00:15:56.000 But Crapo or Rish or whatever in Idaho or Mike Rounds in South Dakota, game on.

00:16:03.000 Look, the American people gave us a mandate.

00:16:07.000 They gave us jet fuel.

00:16:09.000 These are obvious pieces of slander.

00:16:13.000 We won the referendum.

00:16:15.000 Joni Ernst did not win the referendum.

00:16:18.000 Okay, yes, she's elected by the people of Iowa. 0.98

00:16:19.000 Good for you.

00:16:20.000 By the way, she was in a very competitive Senate race, and Donald Trump made multiple visits in 2020 and bailed her out in a very competitive Senate race.

00:16:28.000 People don't remember that.

00:16:29.000 A lot of these people he bailed out.

00:16:31.000 And then you got James Lankford out there.

00:16:34.000 We're not done with James Lankford.

00:16:35.000 I'm telling you, that guy, he has no political future.

00:16:39.000 If James Lankford was smart and wanted a political future, he'd be like leading the charge.

00:16:43.000 Pete Hegseth, you have like a Pete Hegseth shirt.

00:16:44.000 No, no, Lankford is, his political career is dead.

00:16:47.000 He doesn't know it yet.

00:16:48.000 It's really remarkable how many Senate Republicans are quick to give Joe Biden what he wants, but are very hesitant to give Donald Trump what he wants.

00:16:58.000 Donald Trump is standing by Pete Hegseth 100%.

00:17:00.000 Let's play cut 103, please.

00:17:03.000 I spoke to Trump this morning, just a few minutes ago.

00:17:06.000 The support this morning.

00:17:08.000 How are the meetings going?

00:17:10.000 Great.

00:17:10.000 How did the meeting with Ernie Scott?

00:17:12.000 It was instructive.

00:17:14.000 The entire regime is very threatened by Pete Hegseth.

00:17:22.000 Why is that?

00:17:23.000 He'll kick the woke out of the military. 1.00

00:17:25.000 He'll fix the vaccine mandate situation.

00:17:28.000 This is the red line.

00:17:29.000 The Senate does not get to act as if it's this Praetorian Guard that is better than the American people and better than Trump.

00:17:38.000 We won the referendum.

00:17:40.000 We presented a referendum to the American people.

00:17:43.000 We presented a binary choice.

00:17:45.000 Do you want to go the way to Kamala Harris, Lloyd Austin?

00:17:48.000 And again, these Republicans voted for Lloyd Austin.

00:17:52.000 These Republicans voted for Merrick Garland.

00:17:55.000 Roy Blunt, who's gone.

00:17:57.000 But Bill Cassidy voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:01.000 John Cornyn voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:03.000 Joni Ernst voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:06.000 Lindsey Graham voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:09.000 James Lankford voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:12.000 Mitch McConnell voted for Merrick Garland.

00:18:15.000 Jerry Moran, Lisa Murkowski, Mike Rounds, Tom Tillis.

00:18:20.000 Now, let me ask you guys in the audience.

00:18:21.000 Email me freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:18:24.000 If you could only choose one U.S. Senator, and they have to be in cycle to primary, who would it be?

00:18:32.000 I'm curious.

00:18:33.000 So let's just kind of go through the map.

00:18:35.000 Idaho is up.

00:18:37.000 So, Alabama's up, but we like Tommy Tuberville.

00:18:39.000 Dan Sullivan is up in Alaska, but that's a little risky one because Alaska can be really goofy because of ranked choice voting, and he's been okay.

00:18:46.000 We'll put that aside.

00:18:47.000 Tom Cotton is up.

00:18:48.000 We like Tom, so that wins the side.

00:18:51.000 Georgia's up, but we don't control any Senate seats there.

00:18:54.000 Very frustrating.

00:18:56.000 Ooh! 0.96

00:18:56.000 Joni Ernst is up. 0.96

00:18:58.000 That's an interesting one.

00:18:59.000 There will be an open Kentucky Senate race, so hopefully we can have a real MAGA conservative in the open Kentucky Senate primary race.

00:19:07.000 Maine, no touching Susan Collins.

00:19:10.000 We got some angry emails.

00:19:11.000 Charlie Susan's the worst.

00:19:12.000 She's a Republican senator in a deep blue state.

00:19:15.000 Who else could win statewide?

00:19:17.000 We have an extra Republican seat that voted for us when we need it for Kavanaugh.

00:19:20.000 She's fine.

00:19:22.000 Susan Collins, we're lucky to have 53 seats because Susan Collins.

00:19:26.000 Cindy Hyde-Smith in Mississippi.

00:19:28.000 Where are you, Cindy Hyde-Smith?

00:19:29.000 Have you come out in support of Pete Hegseth?

00:19:31.000 I haven't heard a thing out of you.

00:19:32.000 You're on the list.

00:19:33.000 Open seat with New Hampshire.

00:19:35.000 Hopefully we can defeat Gene Shaheen.

00:19:37.000 Awful.

00:19:38.000 Tom Tillis, who's been behaving better, but don't be fooled by him.

00:19:43.000 Oklahoma, Mark Wayne Mullen, who's been great for President Trump, and we've developed a friendship.

00:19:48.000 He's going to be speaking at AmFest, I think, so no need to do anything there.

00:19:52.000 He's been great.

00:19:53.000 Mike Rounds, I'll tell you, he's on the list.

00:19:56.000 John Cornyn is on the list.

00:19:58.000 And Shelley Moore Capito. 0.99

00:19:59.000 So that's kind of our list right there.

00:20:01.000 Here's the criteria.

00:20:02.000 You must be in cycle.

00:20:03.000 You must be actively define the president's agenda, vocally, repeatedly, and publicly.

00:20:10.000 You must be a neoconservative, because why would we primary summit if it's not neoconservative?

00:20:13.000 And you must be from a blood-red state.

00:20:16.000 We're not going to play around with states that we might lose because the primary goes to weird...

00:20:21.000 We're not going to do that.

00:20:22.000 It has to be from states like Idaho.

00:20:24.000 Idaho is definitely near the top of the list, by the way.

00:20:26.000 Definitely.

00:20:27.000 Jim Risch is up.

00:20:28.000 I've met him once.

00:20:29.000 Nice enough guy.

00:20:30.000 This guy's a complete neocon.

00:20:32.000 He's 81 years old.

00:20:33.000 Senator Risch, it's time to retire.

00:20:35.000 We got a great bench in Idaho.

00:20:37.000 Just retire.

00:20:38.000 Let us get some fresh blood in there. 0.98

00:20:40.000 And has Jim Risch come out and support?

00:20:43.000 That would be nice.

00:20:44.000 Mike Rounds has just been so frustrating.

00:20:48.000 He did something the other day that really bothered me.

00:20:50.000 I can't remember what it was.

00:20:51.000 We tweeted at him.

00:20:53.000 These guys are so...

00:20:54.000 They look at themselves as the protectorate of this regime.

00:21:00.000 Oh, that's right.

00:21:01.000 Mike Rounds with Kash Patel.

00:21:03.000 And by the way, the Kash Patel fight is a whole other one looming.

00:21:06.000 This is just starting, everybody.

00:21:07.000 That's why this war is ongoing.

00:21:09.000 This fight is ongoing.

00:21:10.000 We got Bobby Kennedy to get through.

00:21:12.000 We got Tulsi Gabbard to get through.

00:21:14.000 We got Kash Patel to get through.

00:21:16.000 This is not just the Pete Hegseth thing.

00:21:18.000 And if the Senate develops a habit as if they are superior to the American people, this pocket veto is just going to continue.

00:21:24.000 It's the phase two that we've been talking about.

00:21:27.000 Phase one campaign.

00:21:28.000 So email me freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:21:30.000 Out of that list, who do you want to see primaried most?

00:21:33.000 Has to be on that list, though.

00:21:34.000 I don't care about their future years.

00:21:36.000 On that list, who do you want to see?

00:21:37.000 Email me freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:21:39.000 If your approach to everyday aches and pains is to mask them, you know, feel better for a few hours only to have the pain return and then repeat the cycle all over again.

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00:22:40.000 Joining us now is Timothy C. Parlatore, attorney for Pete Hegseth.

00:22:44.000 Timothy, welcome to the program.

00:22:46.000 Timothy, there are so many accusations being thrown at Pete right now.

00:22:49.000 I want to set the record straight.

00:22:52.000 First and foremost, let's go to this narrative that he mistreats women.

00:22:56.000 What is the truth?

00:22:58.000 That is a completely false narrative.

00:23:00.000 It is something that the media has tried to put out there and they've used some of these false claims to create that.

00:23:08.000 But the reality is that Pete is somebody who I think is going to be a good champion for everybody in the Department of Defense, men and women.

00:23:17.000 And so a lot of these isolated incidents, false incidents from years ago, really don't have any bearing on that.

00:23:23.000 And I'm happy to go through each and every one of these because they're all false.

00:23:27.000 Yeah, please do.

00:23:27.000 Please do.

00:23:28.000 Go one by one.

00:23:29.000 So let's start with this, you know, the claim of the sexual assault.

00:23:33.000 That's the most serious claim.

00:23:35.000 This is something that was investigated by the police, and they went through it.

00:23:39.000 And they actually did a really good investigation.

00:23:41.000 I went through the police report, and they started with her statement, and then started to get other statements to try and corroborate it.

00:23:48.000 And ultimately, the very last statement that they took was Pete's.

00:23:51.000 He did something I wouldn't normally have a client do.

00:23:54.000 He spoke to them without me there.

00:23:56.000 But in this case, it turned out to his benefit.

00:23:58.000 And so you take her statement.

00:24:01.000 You know, which is pretty damning unto itself.

00:24:04.000 But then you try and compare it to everything else that the other people said.

00:24:07.000 And you know that she's lying.

00:24:09.000 Because she's sitting there saying, you know, I don't remember anything.

00:24:13.000 I must have been drugged.

00:24:14.000 And yet, she leaves the bar at 1.30.

00:24:16.000 She goes upstairs with Pete.

00:24:18.000 And she's back in her hotel room with her husband at 4 a.m.

00:24:22.000 In that very brief period of time, her husband says, no slurred words, steady gait.

00:24:29.000 She wasn't drugged.

00:24:31.000 Anybody that knows anything about these date rape drugs, there would have been significant signs at that time.

00:24:37.000 So she's lying about that.

00:24:39.000 All of her co-workers are saying in the bar they saw her flirting with him.

00:24:44.000 The police investigators went to the surveillance cameras and they showed she's the one leading him upstairs.

00:24:50.000 She's the one grabbing him by the arm and smiling and being seductive. 0.57

00:24:53.000 Hotel employees also confirmed this.

00:24:56.000 But then you go look at his statement.

00:24:58.000 His statement, which is something that makes a lot of sense.

00:25:01.000 But the key to me in reading his statement is at the very end, where he says that after the consensual encounter, they sat down and talked and she was starting to have regrets.

00:25:09.000 And she said, you know, I didn't go back to my husband's room.

00:25:13.000 Here's what I'm going to do.

00:25:14.000 I'm going to tell him I fell asleep on a friend's couch and I'm very sorry.

00:25:18.000 And yet, when you go to the husband's statement, he says that's exactly what she said when she walked in the room.

00:25:25.000 So the husband actually impeaches her credibility on this fake drug thing and supports Pete's credibility by saying this is what they discussed because this is exactly what she did.

00:25:37.000 So it is something that the police were able to very easily look at and say this was a consensual encounter.

00:25:44.000 There was no sexual assault.

00:25:45.000 They didn't press charges.

00:25:47.000 That case is completely closed and it's obvious that it was false.

00:25:52.000 And just how this has continued to grow is remarkable.

00:25:58.000 The other allegations come from the New Yorker and Concerned Veterans for America.

00:26:02.000 Let's go through those.

00:26:03.000 Yeah, so the New Yorker, what they did was they took an anonymous complaint from years ago that somebody, a disgruntled, terminated employee, had written this screed to try and get Pete fired from Fox.

00:26:17.000 Fox looked into these claims back then.

00:26:19.000 I represented Pete at the time.

00:26:21.000 And the then trustee of Concerned Veterans for America wrote a letter to Fox debunking it and saying, no, he wasn't fired for these things.

00:26:30.000 No, he wasn't pushed out.

00:26:32.000 Here's the reason why he decided to leave.

00:26:34.000 They had a philosophical difference of opinion on certain things, and he wanted to build his career at Fox.

00:26:40.000 It had nothing to do with any of that stuff.

00:26:42.000 They interviewed, and several of these people have since come on the record With their names, saying that all of these claims about, you know, drunken incidents, you know, strip club, all that kind of stuff, all false.

00:26:54.000 People who are there.

00:26:56.000 People who are willing to put their names on it.

00:26:58.000 Not anonymous, you know, so-called whistleblowers.

00:27:01.000 And in fact, some of these things, you know, as a criminal defense lawyer, I often say, the best lies is where you take a kernel of truth, Then you change a few facts to try and make it, you know, fit a narrative.

00:27:13.000 That's what they did here.

00:27:14.000 So, for example, this story about the strip club of Pete, you know, getting drunk and trying to climb up on stage.

00:27:21.000 That happened.

00:27:22.000 But it wasn't Pete.

00:27:24.000 It was somebody else.

00:27:25.000 Pete wasn't there.

00:27:26.000 Pete wasn't at the event.

00:27:28.000 Pete wasn't even in the state at the time.

00:27:31.000 So, you have all this collection of statements or allegations that have all been completely debunked by other people, but The New Yorker doesn't care about that.

00:27:41.000 You know, The New Yorker went and published that without bothering to check and get corroboration because anonymous sources who are willing to say something damaging to the nominee is something that they can use to try and sink the nomination process.

00:27:56.000 The other allegation comes from Fox that he has some sort of drinking problem.

00:28:02.000 Your thought, your reaction to that?

00:28:04.000 And, you know, this again, when the first, you know, when the sexual assault allegation failed, they tried something new.

00:28:12.000 Now they tried the CVA thing.

00:28:13.000 That failed, so now it's something new.

00:28:15.000 Now they have a couple of anonymous, you know, Fox employees who claim these things happened, and yet, You saw yesterday morning how out on X, a ton of Fox News personalities and employees came out on the record with their names saying, I sat next to Pete for the past eight years.

00:28:35.000 This never happened.

00:28:37.000 He never smelled of alcohol.

00:28:39.000 And it is just emblematic of the larger problem here that if you don't have something good to take down this nominee, if you don't have something that's actually solid, you just go with somebody anonymous who's willing to hide behind that anonymity.

00:28:54.000 And make these false claims.

00:28:56.000 And I keep asking these journalists, you know what?

00:28:58.000 If you want me to be able to respond to this directly, tell me who the person is so I can tell you exactly what their problems are with credibility.

00:29:06.000 And of course, oh, no, no, we have to protect our sources.

00:29:09.000 We can't allow their credibility to be questioned.

00:29:13.000 Well, then why don't you go talk to any of these other people?

00:29:15.000 You know, the New York Times reports about these alleged incidents at Fox.

00:29:20.000 And when they asked me about it, I said, that didn't happen.

00:29:22.000 Well, do you have any witnesses?

00:29:23.000 I said, that's your job.

00:29:25.000 You're the media.

00:29:26.000 You want to put out an article.

00:29:28.000 You have to fact-check it.

00:29:30.000 It's easy to ascertain who else was there at the time because it was televised.

00:29:34.000 Call them up.

00:29:36.000 Or just publish your fake article and wait for tomorrow morning on X to see everybody come out and say, I was there, and the New York Times published another fake article.

00:29:44.000 Yeah, and so is that it?

00:29:46.000 So we're getting through a debunked sexual assault thing that's nonsense, some concerned veterans from America that it's debunked, and that he does not have a drinking problem.

00:29:54.000 I mean, this is what we're spending our time on for Secretary of Defense?

00:29:59.000 Exactly.

00:29:59.000 When you strip all the lies away, what you have is that over a decade ago, A bunch of young combat veterans who came back from the war got together and occasionally drank too much beer.

00:30:12.000 That's not news.

00:30:13.000 That's not a scandal.

00:30:15.000 In fact, that's the main revenue model of the VFW and the American Legion.

00:30:20.000 Totally.

00:30:21.000 In the hall there.

00:30:23.000 And guess what?

00:30:24.000 Every single one of us did.

00:30:26.000 Okay?

00:30:27.000 When I got out of the Navy, I drank too much.

00:30:30.000 My friends drank too much.

00:30:33.000 But we matured.

00:30:35.000 Pete matured.

00:30:36.000 Pete overcame that.

00:30:38.000 And unfortunately, some of us didn't.

00:30:40.000 And Pete and I both have lost many friends to suicide that didn't overcome it.

00:30:46.000 But Pete did overcome it.

00:30:48.000 And this is why I look at these allegations of past alcohol abuse.

00:30:52.000 Everybody wants to say that's disqualifying.

00:30:54.000 I say the exact opposite.

00:30:56.000 I say the fact that he went through that experience, the stresses of combat, the experiences of that, the effects of that, and using alcohol to self-medicate and cope with that, and then overcoming it the way that he has.

00:31:11.000 That gives him a greater perspective than any Secretary of Defense we've had in recent history to understand exactly what every single man and woman that's going to be working for him in that department is going through and what they need.

00:31:23.000 And it's going to give him a much better perspective on how to take care of his people instead of just sitting there in his ivory tower like these, like Austin and Madison, all these guys, passing judgment on anybody that isn't perfect.

00:31:36.000 Yeah, I just, I mean, again, I want to just say that attacking Pete for having a prior drinking problem, or not problem, but just a prior drinking pattern that he's overcome, when it comes to the military, is very rich.

00:31:49.000 DC, I think, is the drunkest city in the country.

00:31:52.000 I think there literally is a study.

00:31:54.000 That D.C. is the drunkest city.

00:31:56.000 In closing here, you've known Pete for a while.

00:31:58.000 He's served admirably.

00:31:59.000 I know he's fighting like crazy and he's trying to get out of this.

00:32:03.000 Is there any other accusation that hasn't?

00:32:05.000 I mean, this is it.

00:32:07.000 This is the weakest I've ever seen. 0.99

00:32:09.000 Why are Senate Republicans taking this crap seriously? 0.58

00:32:13.000 You know, and this is one of the reasons why yesterday and today Pete and I decided to come out significantly on offense to attack these allegations, because every single one of them has a perfect factual defense. 0.97

00:32:26.000 And I think that that's what these senators need to hear, is they need to hear that defense so that they can be comfortable with this nominee, that all of these things are fake, they're in the past, they have nothing to do With the person that they're talking about putting into the Pentagon, and if anything, his experience of not only overcoming that at the time, but also now his experience of overcoming it right here, when everybody's trying to attack him and he's able to overcome that, that's going to make him a much stronger leader in the Pentagon.

00:32:56.000 And all he wants is a fair hearing.

00:33:01.000 All he wants is for the senators to listen to him, ask him the tough questions, give him the opportunity to respond, and then make a decision based on a fair hearing of the actual facts instead of fake anonymous claims.

00:33:16.000 Timothy, thank you for your time.

00:33:18.000 Excellent analysis.

00:33:19.000 Very thoughtful.

00:33:20.000 Again, it was very helpful to kind of have that all laid out.

00:33:23.000 Any Republican that doesn't vote for Pete Hegseth will be primaried and will be removed.

00:33:28.000 Timothy, thank you so much.

00:33:29.000 Thank you.

00:33:30.000 Thanks so much for listening, everybody.

00:33:32.000 Email us, as always, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:33:35.000 Thanks so much for listening, and God bless.

The Charlie Kirk Show - December 05, 2024

Unraveling the Lies About Pete Hegseth

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