Decorated U.S. Army veteran Pete Hegseth completely dismantled legacy media during his Tuesday confirmation hearing, exposing the slanted and anonymously-sourced attacks on his character for exactly what they were.
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Roger Wicker (R-MS) opened the hearing by giving Hegseth a chance to address the accusations — which he also noted were anonymously-sourced and quickly amplified by a breathless media.
🚨 HOLY SH*T!
Pete Hegseth just totally dismantled the left-wing media smears against him in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"Our left-wing media doesn't CARE about the truth. All they want to do is destroy ME – because I am a change agent, a threat to them."… pic.twitter.com/JqcgzafC4p
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) January 14, 2025
“From story after story in the media, left-wing media, we saw anonymous source after anonymous source, based on second-or-third-hand accounts,” Hegseth began. “And time and time again, stories would come out and people would reach out to me and say, you know, ‘I’ve spoken to this reporter about who you really are and I was willing to go on the record — but they didn’t print my quote, any of my quotes!'”
JOIN THE MOVEMENT IN ’25 WITH 25% OFF DAILYWIRE+ ANNUAL MEMBERSHIPS WITH CODE DW25
“Or ‘I’ve worked with you for ten years,’ or ‘I was your accountant,’ or ‘I was your Chief Operating Officer,’ or ‘I was your board member,’ or ‘I was with you on a hundred different tour stops for Concerned Veterans for America. No one called me,'” Hegseth continued. “‘No one asked about your conduct on the record or off the record.'”
“Instead, a small handful of anonymous sources were allowed to drive a smear campaign, an agenda about me, because our left-wing media in America today, sadly, doesn’t care about the truth,” Hegseth took direct aim at legacy media then. “All they were out to do, Mr. Chairman, was destroy me. And why do they want to destroy me? Because I am a change agent, a threat to them.”
“I am willing to endure these attacks,” Hegseth said. He went on to add that he would continue to stand up against them: “What I will do is stand up for the truth and for my reputation. False attacks. Anonymous attacks. Repeated ad nauseam, printed ad nauseam as ‘facts.'”
“I’m not a perfect person, as has been acknowledged,” he concluded. “Saved by the grace of God. By Jesus and Jenny. I’m not a perfect person, but redemption is real and God forged me in ways that I know I’m prepared for … I look forward to leading this Pentagon on behalf of the warfighters.”
