Over the Thanksgiving break, more pretty horrific details surfaced regarding Donald Trump's secretary of defense pick, Pete Hegseth, and this includes his own mother disclosing that she believes that he engages in abusive behavior toward women. [00:00:18] In an email that she wrote to him amid one of his divorces. And I'm going to get to that later in this story. But first, I want to focus on some of the bombshell reporting that was carried out by The New Yorker. Jane Mayer is the reporter here who basically found some information [00:00:35] in a seven page report, from the time that Pete Hegseth was leading the veterans for Freedom and Concerned Veterans for America CVA from 2013 to 2016. Apparently in his staff, there were two whistleblowers who actually [00:00:54] reported some of his behavior, which they found to be inappropriate, including chaos at a Louisiana strip club that he fostered a culture of sexism, a hateful and Islamophobic outburst in Ohio, and they claim that donor funds were being used for partying and hookups. [00:01:14] I know I'm a bad person, but one of these things I don't think is that big of a deal, but a lot of the other stuff is is horrible. So let me start with the, in my opinion, lightest accusations. So, again, the report on these allegations began when he took [00:01:31] his CVA team to a, a strip club. So in late November of 2014, Hegseth and his team deployed to Louisiana for a US Senate runoff. This is when, according to the whistleblower complaint, Hegseth took the CVA team to the strip club where he was so drunk he tried to get [00:01:49] on the stage and dance with the strippers. So that's not great. I don't think that's the worst thing in the world. But a female CVA associate, the report says, had to get him off the stage, adding she had to intervene with security to prevent him from getting thrown out. [00:02:09] The whistleblower continued, as if in disbelief. A Fox News contributor with the rank of captain at the time in the National Guard and the CEO of a veterans organization, was in a strip club trying to dance with strippers. [00:02:25] Now, what he did after that, allegedly based on what this whistleblower is saying, is way, way worse. And I'm going to get to that in just a minute. But thoughts so far, Jake. Yeah, I agree with you completely. I draw the lines to the same place you do. [00:02:40] Like, look, some guy gets too drunk and tries to dance with the strippers. It's not appropriate in a workplace environment, and especially when you're the boss. But is that the end of the world? It's not the end of the world. Okay. [00:02:55] And so if that same person is perfectly lovely when he's not, when he's in the office and he's not in a work environment. He is in a work environment, and he respects women at the workplace and makes sure to protect them and all the things that you would normally expect. [00:03:14] But that one night he got drunk and tried to dance with a stripper? Who cares in my opinion. And some of you can say, hey Jake, that's too lenient. Okay, that's fine. Right? But I think what he did at the office is way, way, way worse. And, yeah. And also the, the anti-Muslim, thing that we're about to tell you guys, [00:03:33] it's not just because I'm a muslim, and it's it's because the guy who says that is a deeply problematic guy. So we'll get to that as well. So the same woman who had to pull Hegseth off the stage also alleges [00:03:49] that another male staff member attempted to sexually assault her while they were at the strip club. The female staffer alleged that in that a different male staff member had attempted to sexually assault her there, according to the report. [00:04:05] A CVA manager, however, has was described as dismissive for arguing that her attacker had been drunk and therefore shouldn't be held responsible. And she, by the way, alleges that she was later punished [00:04:20] for disclosing that the staffer had attempted to sexually assault her. The woman was ostracized and, experiencing reprisal by the organization, which the whistleblower report said has become a hostile and intimidating work environment. [00:04:35] So that's far, far worse, if you ask me. According to the report, this was normal because under Hesketh's leadership, there was a thick culture of sexism and objectification. The report also says, by the way, and this is according to the same reporting [00:04:52] from Jane Mayer in The New Yorker. He was married at the time that this was all happening. And other members of his management team, sexually pursued the organization's female staffers, whom they divided into two groups, the so-called party girls [00:05:08] and the not party girls. And obviously that creates a hostile work environment. Obviously that makes the the, the women, the females in the organization feel incredibly uncomfortable, which is why this whistleblower report came out to begin with. And by the way, it doesn't stop there. [00:05:24] His behavior, according to this reporting, gets even more disturbing. So on May 29th, 2015, the staffer said Hegseth and someone traveling with the group's Defend Freedom tour closed down the bar at the Sheraton Suites Hotel. [00:05:40] The duo yelled kill all Muslims multiple times in what the staffer described as a drunk and a violent manner. Hegseth despicable behavior, he wrote, embarrassed the entire organization, he went on. [00:05:55] I personally was ashamed, and others were as well. The Staffer's letter cited a second incident in which he wrote, Hegseth passed out in the back of a party bus, then urinated in front of a hotel where Cva's team was staying. [00:06:11] Additionally, Hegseth is accused of treating Cva's finances as a personal expense account and allegedly used donor funds for partying and drinking, according to three people knowledgeable of of these allegations, one of whom [00:06:27] contributed to the whistleblower report. Hegseth was forced to step down from this organization. So we've got more. Jake, what are your thoughts? Yeah, this is really bad. So, look, I wouldn't go and take a tight outing to a strip club [00:06:44] because I'm the leader of that organization, so that's nonsense. Okay, but even so, I'm trying to be as open minded as possible. They go there, so. And then he tries to get on the dance floor. All right, I continue. Maybe to a fault. Being open minded about it. [00:06:59] But then when one of your own is sexually assaulted or harassed as the head of the organization, it is your responsibility to protect her. And instead of protecting her, when you throw her under the bus and you vilify her for reporting it now, then we've got a massive problem because, look, [00:07:20] it's not just about sexual harassment. It's not just about your drinking. It's it's the fact that you're not doing the core of your job, which is to protect the people who work under you and make sure that you've got a work environment that addresses veterans issues and the thing [00:07:36] that you're supposed to actually be doing. Now, when you divide the women at the office and the party girls and nonparty girls, think about why that's awful, right? And again, he's not just a rando in the, you know, male office or the accountant, [00:07:52] and that would be bad enough. Okay. But he's the leader of the organization now. Do you think you want to be in the party girl category where they think, oh, we might be able to have sex with them? And that's how we're categorizing these women at work, Right. [00:08:08] Or do you want to be in the nonparty girl category where you're vilified and and you're, you know, frowned upon because, oh, you don't even want to have sex with the leaders of this organization. Both categories are awful. [00:08:24] You do not want to be in either category. And so this is just a disaster. Now when you get to the kill all Muslims thing. Okay, guys, you know this is true. I'm about to tell you the most true thing you've ever heard. And it doesn't matter where you are on the political spectrum. If instead of saying kill all Muslims, they had shouted kill all the Jews. [00:08:44] Is there any chance Pete Hegseth becomes the Secretary of Defense? And we all know it? No, there's a 0% chance, and it should be a 0% chance. You should say kill all the Jews. That's insanity. And I know a lot of Americans don't agree, but saying kill all Muslims [00:09:01] is the same exact thing. It's just a different religion, a different group of folks, and killing all of them, or saying you want to kill all of them is not 1% better than saying kill all the Jews or kill the Christians or anything like that. [00:09:16] So this guy is despicable and he belongs nowhere in the Department of Defense, let alone leading the Department of Defense totally out of control. And by the way, the sexual, you know, assault charges against him that we discussed earlier, where I was kind of 50 over 50 on the publicly [00:09:34] available evidence, his mom's letter. Plus this stuff puts me at past 50 over 50. Yeah. Me too. Really bad guy. Me too. So let's actually get to his mom's email because that was pretty damning. Again, this is his own mother, and she's remorseful now for writing this email, [00:09:53] which we'll get to in just a minute. But here's what it said. So look, Hegseth has you know, it's public knowledge at this point. He has cheated on his wives. He has had multiple divorces. And so the New York Times had obtained an email by his 70 year old mother, Penelope [00:10:13] Hegseth, after his son's contentious divorce from his second wife, Samantha. So Samantha was not only his second wife, she's also the mother of three of his children. And here's what she wrote in the email. On behalf of all the women. And I know it's many you have abused in some way. [00:10:32] I say get some help and take an honest look at yourself. I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man and have been for years and as your mother, it pains me [00:10:50] and embarrasses me to say that. But it is the sad, sad truth for you. For you to try to label her as unstable, meaning Samantha for your own advantage is despicable and abusive. Is there any sense of decency left in you? She. [00:11:07] Samantha did not ask for or deserve any of what has come to her by your hand. Neither did Meredith. And Meredith was his first wife. So Penelope now claims that she regrets sending the email telling the times quote, it is not true. [00:11:25] It has never been true. I know my son. He is a good father husband. She said that publishing the contents of the first email was disgusting. And I should note that after she sent the first email sometime afterward, she basically messaged him again to apologize for the email. [00:11:45] What? What are your thoughts on that? I just, I think that there's a certain level of clarity junk coming from his mother here. And look, I'm sure she loves her son. And so I think she did feel these things, but then didn't want to lose her son, [00:12:01] didn't want to destroy her relationship with him for being too harsh. Which led to the second email. But like you wrote it because you felt it. And I mean, you look at the allegations against Hegseth. You look at the infidelity, the multiple divorces, which, by the way, happens. [00:12:19] People get divorced. I'm not judging over that. But when you take all of that together and put it in context, it just doesn't look good for Hegseth at all. Yeah. Look, I hate going into their personal lives, and I hate, you know, the fact that the moms letter, which she didn't want to come out is out. [00:12:37] And I'm not judging him for his divorces. I'm not judging him for even his infidelity. And you could say, hey, on a personal level, that really bothers me. Okay. That's fine. No problem. Okay. But that shouldn't affect policy. That shouldn't affect politics, in my opinion, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican. [00:12:54] And I always say always think about a shoe on the other foot. Right. So I don't know how many, marriages, Democratic nominees had, and I'm not concerned about it, but when but did the mom mean the things that she wrote in the first letter? Of course she did. I mean, you don't write that kind of harsh stuff, about your son. [00:13:10] Unless you meant it. And it reminded me a little bit of Ivana Trump's, statements in the divorce proceedings against Donald Trump, which she then later took back after they reached a divorce settlement. But she had written him in there in her book and in the deposition and the vicious [00:13:28] things that Donald Trump did to her. So there's no way to put that horse back in the barn. We know that those things happened because they said it in a moment of truth and clarity. Right now, to me, the more important part is, okay, now, when you take all the allegations at the veterans group that he ran, you take what his mom says [00:13:48] about how he abuses women. You take interestingly, that clip we showed you guys last week of, a woman at Fox News, one of his colleagues saying, you should be concerned about this guy. Right. And, and and then you couple that and then you look back at that, 2017 sexual assault [00:14:09] allegation and now I'm past 50 over 50. Like on the available evidence. You just couldn't tell, right? They didn't charge him. And you know, there were things that the witnesses said that were against him and that were in favor of him, etc. But when you see the overwhelming pattern in his life of just not having any regard [00:14:28] for women and, and you know, what they think and their volition and their consent, etc., it makes me, and the fact that, you know, he quickly settled it again, we don't know what he settled, that, you know, the civil suit [00:14:44] regarding that sexual assault allegation. We don't know how much he settled for. And the fact that and one other thing that was evident in the beginning, and we mentioned in passing that Siouxsie Wiles, the chief of staff for Trump, seems significantly concerned. [00:14:59] And so when you put all that together, that leads me to think that that maybe he did do that sexual assault. And again, it's so hard for us to know from the outside. And, and any way you slice it, though, even if you say, hey, that's not good enough evidence. I'm not going to hold that against him. [00:15:16] What he did at the veterans group is bad enough on its own. It's it's an absolute deal breaker. And so if you say no, it's not a deal breaker at the secretary of defense, who cares if he takes the hard working women who are trying to protect our nation [00:15:33] and divides them into party girls and non party girls? And if he's. Oh yeah, maybe he doesn't want to kill the Christians or the Jews, but hey, maybe he'll kill all the Muslims and the Buddhists. Yeah, and I'm not interested in that guy. That's a really bad guy. Would be a is a terrible pick for Secretary of Defense. [00:15:49] Thanks for watching The Young Turks. Really appreciate it. Another way to show support is through YouTube memberships. You'll get to interact with us more. There's live chat emojis, badges. You've got emojis of me Anna John Jr. So those are super fun. But you also get playback of our exclusive member only shows [00:16:08] and specials right after they air. So all of that, all you got to do is click that join button right underneath the video. Thank you.