MSNBC guest — and staff writer at The Atlantic — David Frum stepped far enough over the line on Wednesday that even the hosts of “Morning Joe” balked, condemning his comments as “too flippant” for the current climate.
Frum compared Hegseth to a nominee put forward years ago by the late President George H.W. Bush, arguing that Hegseth had all of the same weaknesses, but none of the strengths. Hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski did not interrupt Frum while he was speaking, but paused after his segment ended to address the audience and put some distance on what he had said.
WATCH:
VIDEO – David Frum on Pete Hegseth: ‘If You’re Too Drunk for Fox News, You’re Very, Very Drunk Indeed’ https://t.co/1yef9312n5
— Grabien (@GrabienMedia) December 4, 2024
“Well, just given what one sees on camera, if you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed. So, that’s alarming,” Frum said. “In 1989, President George H.W. Bush nominated John Tower, senator from Texas, for Secretary of Defense. And Tower was a very considerable person, a real defense intellectual, someone who deeply understood defense, unlike the current nominee. And it emerged that Tower had a drinking problem. And when he was drinking too much, he would make himself a nuisance or worse to women around him.”
“And for that reason, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You don’t wanna think that our moral standards have declined so much that you can say, ‘Let’s take all the drinking, all the sex-pesting, subtract any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership. And there’s your next Secretary of Defense for the 21st century,'” he added.
CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE HOLIDAY GIFT GUIDE
But his comments, according to Scarborough and Brzezinski, were not acceptable — and they addressed that just before cutting away to a commercial break.
“Before we go to break, a little earlier in this block, there was a comment made about Fox News in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol,” Brzezinski said. “The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we are in. We just wanna make that comment as well. We wanna make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News and that’s a good debate that we should have often. But right now, I just wanna say to say there are a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth and we’ll wanna leave it at that.”
