MSNBC Guest Who Went After Pete Hegseth Facing Backlash From All Sides

Earlier this week, President-elect Donald Trump selected Pete Hegseth to serve as his Secretary of Defense. The reaction was swift, with the criticism in many cases downright nasty and ugly. MSNBC, which has been taking Trump’s win pretty hard and has suffered from plummeting post-election ratings, had on multiple guests who threw Hegseth under the bus by accusing him of being a “white supremacist.”

During “All In with Chris Hayes,” Sherrilyn Ifill, a lawyer and professor at Howard University, who also served as the former president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, made such a claim.

Ifill also focused on Hegseth’s role as a Fox News host, with Hayes jumping in to clarify that he was a “Fox & Friends Weekend” host, which Ifill called “an important distinction,” rather than mention how Hegseth is also a decorated veteran. “This is someone who, you know, is known to be a white supremacist, known to be an extremist, whose platform, whose book is basically about his opposition to the advancement of black officers to the top brass,” she claimed in a clip that has been circulating. She would later go on to acknowledge that Hegseth is a veteran, but claimed that that “is simply inefficient.”

MSNBC: @PeteHegseth is a “known white supremacist.” pic.twitter.com/zyuYPfEl9A

— Natalie Winters (@nataliegwinters) November 15, 2024

That book, “War on Warriors,” which came out earlier this year and which we had a chance to review after interviewing Hegseth, specifically addresses the dangers and concerns of a woke military. Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) have raised such concerns. The lawmakers’ report also noted that the military is less extreme than the population.

There is also one particularly memorable chapter of Hegseth’s book that focuses on the care and concern he had for his fellow National Guardsmen who were black and were targeted by violent mobs shouting racial slurs while they were defending Washington, DC during the 2020 riots.

If @PeteHegseth was a white supremacist, I would certainly know. This woman has never met him. How dare she!
She deserves to be sued for defamation. https://t.co/yvVNnHevLm

— Rachel Campos-Duffy (@RCamposDuffy) November 15, 2024

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Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr