On Thursday, CNN contributed to the liberal media smear campaign against Pete Hegseth by repeatedly passing along an insane Washington Post hit piece alleging President-Elect Trump’s secretary of defense pick “had a reputation as a heavy drinker” as per six anonymous former Fox News employees with one episode having come during — gasp! — a St. Patrick’s Day weekend segment!
CNN shared it on three different shows between 5:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. Eastern and, of course, chose to leave out when the specific incident occurred. Better yet, CNN seems to have forgotten it’s infamous history of debauchery and on-air drinking from New Year’s Eve from, say, 2018, 2019, and 2020 (or the infamous crotch kiss in 2012).
First, behold the cartoonish Post article by reporters Michael Kranish, Dan Lamothe, Sarah Ellison and John Hudson working on behalf of the left, Pentagon establishment, and Republicans opposed to Hegseth:
At Fox News, Hegseth had a reputation as a heavy drinker, according to six former Fox News employees who worked directly with Hegseth and saw him drinking on the job or visibly drunk at work events and who spoke on the condition of anonymity out of fear of retaliation.
Several years ago, during a St. Patrick’s Day segment on “Fox & Friends Weekend,” support staff at the cable news network set up a display of beers for a holiday segment on the show. After the segment aired, Hegseth walked by the display table and drank each beer, according to two former colleagues who witnessed the incident and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive episode. The incident struck the colleagues as jarring for two reasons: One, the displayed drinks had been sitting out for hours and were stale and warm; two, the show wraps up at 10 a.m., an early hour for alcohol consumption.
CNN This Morning host Kasie Hunt brought it up on both hours of her show. In the first, she contrasted Hegseth “denying” to former colleague Megyn Kelly “that he has ever had a problem with excessive drinking” with a heavy “but” as if to suggest he was lying because of The Post “cit[ing] several employees from his time as a Fox News host that seemed to undercut those claims.”
Hunt’s second hour read the same, adding after quoting the anonymous sources that Hegseth “denied the reports when he was asked for comment by The Washington Post, but he is clearly aware of how central the issue of alcohol has become to his confirmation.”
Interesting the story never provides specificity other than consuming beers already laid out for a St. Patrick’s Day segment…which all the CNN segments ignored.
So, they’re worried about that being a hit to someone’s fitness to serve in government, but that never stopped CNN from letting Don Lemon becoming so drunk in 2016 he consented to having an ear pierced.
A hushed tone about all this game in CNN News Central’s first hour with co-host Kate Bolduan and Trumpworld correspondent Kristen Holmes:
Holmes bragged about this as some albatross as though the press became devout Baptists or Mormons: “So, again, not the starting point you want when you’re on TV defending yourself and defending your drinking, and these reports obviously allege a drinking problem.”
Two hours later, co-host John Berman brought it up again as “new developments” and Holmes returning to tout the “allegations swirling” about Hegseth and alcoholism (click “expand”):
BERMAN: New developments as Pete Hegseth fights to hold on to his nomination for defense secretary. He arrived on capitol hill just a short time ago as new reporting from The Washington Post cites six former Fox News employees who say they witnessed him drinking at questionable moments. They say Hegseth “had a reputation as a heavy drinker,” and they say they saw him “drinking on the job or visibly drunk at work events.” CNN has learned that Hegseth has faced questions from senators, including are you an alcoholic? Are you a womanizer? And did you embezzle money?
(.…)
HOLMES: But as you noted, there are a lot of allegations swirling around now, particularly involving his drinking. We expect that to come up again when he’s on the Hill today. He did address this in an interview yesterday. Here’s what he said first of all, I’ve never had a drinking problem.
[HEGSETH-KELLY CLIP]
HOLMES: Of course, the other thing to keep in mind here is that — is that Hegseth is meeting with a series of various senators today, Donald Trump’s going to be watching closely. We’ll see if he still believes that Hegseth can get confirmed by the end of the day
BERMAN: Yeah. Also saying that he won’t drink at all if he is confirmed as defense secretary, which is an interesting promise.
Fast-forward to the noon Eastern hour’s Inside Politics and Dana Bash held it up as “put[ting] some meat on the bone here” of this alleged narrative about Hegseth being a drunk.
After reading the key Post passage, she admitted “Hegseth’s attorney Timothy Parlatore very clearly denied those claims and pointed to on the record Fox employees who supported and do support um his nomination and say that that didn’t happen.”
Though her name wasn’t on the byline, Post congressional correspondent Marianna Sotomayor weighed in (click “expand”):
CNN really had a two-minute discussion of The Washington Post story expressing horror at @PeteHegseth for having consumed beer during a Fox & Friends segment *about St. Patrick’s Day* pic.twitter.com/7QjgM7ho5V
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) December 5, 2024
SOTOMAYOR: And Hegseth himself behind closed doors talking to senators as well as a little pit stop in the House yesterday, also said the same things. I am not an alcoholic. that is what he is telling these senators — seems like some Republican senators have welcomed that specifically, the promise that Hegseth is making to them, which is I also will not be drinking on the job. I will not be drinking if I am confirmed as defense secretary, so that is pretty significant — maybe could move the needle, but there’s still so many other questions. And, you know to Kristen’s reporting about right now, there aren’t any hard no’s. Well, there could be at a certain point and, like we have all been saying, all eyes are truly on Senator Joni Ernst. If she is going to decide to go against him, I think you’re going to probably see the likes of Senator Lisa Murkowski, possibly Susan Collins as well, come out against him. Here’s the thing. The margin is 53, right? So you could lose three senators and Vance could be that breaking tie to confirm Hegseth on the floor, so there’s still a pathway. It’s not impossible. There’s still a pathway.
BASH: And again, she is on the Armed Services Committee, which means that she would be part of not necessarily the vetting, but — but the questioning and the first line of advise and consent which the Founding Fathers put in the Constitution.
On New Year’s Eve 2018, CNN had drunk co-hosts Anderson Cooper and Andy Cohen toss to correspondent Randi Kaye, who was on a marijuana-fueled buss in Denver.
A year later and with what now know was a rapidly spreading coronavirus in China, Lemon and then-colleague Brooke Baldwin got sloppy drunk with the former insisting he’s going to “lean in harder” and “fight” more in 2010 with Baldwin somewhat coherently claiming she’s gonna try to be her “best self.” That same year, Cohen and Cooper suffered the giggle fits when Cheri Oteri surfaced as a pretend Barbara Walters.
And, in 2020 going into 2021, Cohen had his meltdown about Bill de Blasio and also joined Cooper in giddily asking Snoop Dogg to describe places he’s gone while high on marijuana.
To see the relevant CNN transcripts from December 5, click here (for CNN This Morning) and here (for CNN News Central and Inside Politics).