By Daily Mail (U.S.) | Created at 2025-01-16 04:56:37 | Updated at 2025-01-16 08:01:01
3 hours ago
Megyn Kelly slammed a liberal pundit for what she said were 'disgusting' comments she made about Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearing.
The former Fox News host took aim at Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell for her remarks on a CNN panel with Abby Phillip to discuss the 44-year-old's high-stakes Senate hearing to become the United States' next Secretary of Defense.
'He was very articulate and polished, and he's a TV host - that's his main qualification,' Rampell astonishingly claimed.
Scott Jennings, a conservative political strategist, immediately fired back, saying she was denigrating Hegseth's 20 years of military service.
Still, Rampell defended her remarks.
'Not every member who serves deserves to be in charge of the DoD,' she shot back.
But Jennings continued to hit out at Rampell, saying her claim that Hegseth's main qualification for the role is that he is once co-hosted Fox & Friends is 'just bologna.'
'His main qualification is that he's a war fighter and he's going to be the closest war fighter we've ever had to the enlisted people running the Pentagon,' Jennings asserted.
Megyn Kelly slammed a liberal pundit for what she said were 'disgusting' comments she made about Pete Hegseth during his confirmation hearing.
She took aim at Washington Post columnist Catherine Rampell for her remarks on a CNN panel with Abby Phillip, when she claimed Hegseth's 'main qualification' to be the Secretary of Defense is that he was a television host
Kelly wholeheartedly agreed with the assessment.
'How is it not denigrating his tours in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo the vast majority of his adult life by saying his main qualification for this job was his stint on Fox & Friends,' she said on her podcast before cursing out the Washington Post contributor.
'F*** you Catherine Rampell, because that is denigrating his service,' Kelly continued, arguing: 'His service is the reason he got the job.
'I guarantee you, Trump is more familiar with Brian Kilmeade than he is with Pete Hegseth. I guarantee you,' she said of another Fox & Friends co-host.
'But he did not nominate Brian Kilmeade because he wasn't just looking for a Fox & Friends morning host to run the Pentagon.
'It's Pete's lifetime of service while in the armed services, and afterward, working for veterans, tat got him this job.
'And perhaps Trump wouldn't know about him if he hadn't gotten a job on Fox. But that's what opened the door, not what got him the job.'
'You're so disrespectful and disgusting,' Kelly said of Rampell. 'But that is what the elite thinks of our military and certainly of any Trump supporter - never mind people who are going to wind up in the Cabinet.
Hegseth admitted at the confirmation hearing that he is not 'a perfect person'
'It's absolutely disgusting, and this is what Pete and Trump and Pam Bondi... are going to be facing when they take over: That they're the chewing gum underneath the sneaker and they're too "stupid and scared to really understand how things out to be run."'
Kelly also pointed out that Rampell received her degree from Princeton in anthropology, and before she was at the Washington Post, she was at the New York Times as a theater critic.
'But here she is telling us why Pete was chosen for this job,' she said.
The former Fox News host also hit out at her one-time colleague, Gretchen Carlson, who said on PBS that she was disappointed that the sexual harassment claims made against Hegseth were not more of a barrier for him to take over the Department of Defense.
'You know better than everyone that I will stand up for women, even those I can't stand, if I think they made a valid allegation,' Kelly argued. 'You know that better than anyone.
'And I spent a day going through that woman's police report line-by-line, and I'm telling you, that woman's not telling the truth.
'That's my strong legal and journalistic opinion,' Kelly said.
Kelly also hit out at her former colleague, Gretchen Carlson, who said on PBS that she was disappointed that the sexual harassment claims made against Hegseth were not more of a barrier for him to take over the Department of Defense
'Shame on you for using the money you managed to extract out of Fox News for this nonsense, to try to push these claims because you want to see your face on television,' Kelly yelled at Carlson.
'I find that absolutely abhorrent. How dare she come out and try to disparage him this way, someone who'd been a colleague of his for quite some time.
'And I guarantee you she never saw him drunk, and if she said she did, it's not true.'
Still, Democrats hurled a slew of allegations at Hegseth and interrogated him about his past comments on women in the military and 'woke' policies during his confirmation hearing Tuesday, as they suggested he was not qualified to lead the government department with a budget of more than $800billion.
'I'm not a perfect person as has been acknowledged,' Hegseth said emotionally, adding he has been 'saved by the grace of God, by Jesus and Jenny' his wife, 39.
'I'm not a perfect person but redemption is real. And God forged me in ways that I know I'm prepared for,' he said resolutely. 'And I'm honored by the people standing and sitting behind me and I look forward to leading.'
He also claimed the Pentagon needs to be transformed and be more accountable for failures, such as the catastrophic Afghanistan withdrawal.
It remains to be seen whether Hegseth can garner enough support to forward his nomination and become Donald Trump's next defense secretary.
