Daily Wire host Michael Knowles warned Republicans that if they think the attacks on President-elect Donald Trump’s Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth have been intense, wait until they see what happens with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard.
During Knowles’ appearance on “The Megyn Kelly Show” podcast, Kelly said “we are really at a crossroads here about whether we are going to sacrifice these nominees because of checkered personal pasts or not. It’s not going to get easier after Pete.”
“I’m not surprised that the media and Democrats want to tank Pete Hegseth, and to me, that’s a real mark of confidence in his nomination,” Knowles said. “I really like Pete Hegseth … Pete is one of the first guys that I met when I got into political media.”
“I’ve known him for years, and years. … Every interaction that I’ve had with this guy is that he’s a really terrific guy,” he added. “And so, the knocks on him that have come from the press are that years ago that he was a bit of a casanova, and he’s never really hid that, I don’t think, but if that’s the best that they can come up with, they’ve got some really insane allegations that there’s no evidence for whatsoever.”
“I think it is great for the military. I think it’s great for morale to have someone who looks like Pete, who talks like Pete, who thinks like Pete, has Pete’s experience, to be in charge of the Pentagon,” Knowles continued. “I think it’s probably already helping military recruitment and military morale, and so I think he’s a solid pick.”
Knowles said there’s “real political risk here for President Trump” if Hegseth goes down like his recent pick for Attorney General, Matt Gaetz.
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“I understand why he accepted Matt Gaetz’s removal from the AG nomination,” the Daily Wire host said. “But now there’s a little bit of blood in the water as a result of that. And so, it seems to me, there is a major risk…”
“If Hegseth were to go down, you know all the attention is next going to be on Bobby Kennedy, then it’s going to be on Tulsi Gabbard, who knows — it’s going to be on Ron DeSantis, if they put Ron DeSantis up for defense secretary. I don’t think that ends the problem. I think in many ways, it would exacerbate it.”
Kelly said Republicans are going to have to “find their steely spines” because when it comes to RFK Jr., he makes Hegseth look like the “consummate boy scout” in comparison. She then pointed out that Gabbard is going to be labeled a “Russian foreign agent,” saying “there’s going to be tens of anonymous sources” claiming her connections to Bashar al-Assad.
Knowles joked that “the letter is already being written” to discredit her, comparing it to the letter written by “51 former and present intelligence officials” to discredit the authenticity of the Hunter Biden laptop during the 2020 election.