Pete Hegseth sees parallels between his embattled nomination for secretary of defense and that of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh.
Speaking to Megyn Kelly on Wednesday, Hegseth said that the opposition to his Cabinet nomination was pulled straight from the "playbook" that Democrats ran against Kavanaugh, who was accused of sexual assault by professor Christine Blasey Ford during his ultimately successful confirmation in 2018.
"That's what they're trying to do. That's their playbook," he said. "They're going to make it up. Just like they have so far."
Hegseth was accused of rape in 2017 and settled out of court with the woman in question in 2020. He has maintained that their encounter was consensual. The police report and news that he had paid off the accuser came to light shortly after his nomination in November.
Hegseth said that the claims against him were "all innuendo" and not "sourced." The former Fox News host made that claim despite a police report and an email from his mother that called him an "abuser of women."
Elsewhere in the interview, Hegseth denied a whistleblower report from employees of a veterans charity he ran that claimed he had a drinking problem.
"I never had a drinking problem," he said. "No one’s ever approached me and said, you should really look at getting help for a drink."
Ultimately, Hegseth doesn't see the compounding scandals sinking his chance to join Trump's administration.
"Guess what happened? Kavanaugh stood up and he fought and he won," he said.
Watch the entire interview below:
