Nothing brings the left and right together quite like dunking on Matthew Yglesias.
The wonky blogger drew the ire of White House comms staffer Alex Pfeiffer after he helped spread rumors that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was drinking while delivering a speech at a NATO summit earlier this week. Social media users noted the liquid in Hegseth's cup looked brown, not accounting for the refraction of Hegseth's hand on a clear cup full of water.
"I assume this is a trick of the light and he’s not actually throwing back bourbon on camera, but it’s interesting that the water looks brown," Yglesias shared on X.
I assume this is a trick of the light and he’s not actually throwing back bourbon on camera, but it’s interesting that the water looks brown. pic.twitter.com/M8vpj7FpLt
— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 15, 2025
Hegseth's confirmation was hampered slightly by persistent stories of over-indulging. Employees at a non-profit he ran shared stories of frequent drinking. While it was eventually overshadowed by insinuations of domestic abuse and sexual assault, the noise around his alleged problem drinking got so loud that Hegseth promised to give it up if he was confirmed.
"I’m a different man than I was years ago. And that’s a redemption story that I think a lot of Americans appreciate," Hegseth said of the allegations hurled at him during the confirmation process. "You fight. You go do tough things in tough places on behalf of your country. And sometimes that changes you a little bit."
Yglesias' reminder of this rough start to Hegseth's Cabinet tenure was too much for Pfeiffer, who went scorched Earth on the author of "One Billion Americans."
"It's interesting that an alleged intellectual is actually a mouth-breathing idiot. Or does he just think his followers are?" he wrote. "Less than a month into the new admin, and Matt is trying to make drinking water a scandal."
