‘Appeasement in the New Age of Trump’, MSNBC Edition

David Frum, writing at The Atlantic, regarding his jarring appearance as a guest on MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

Before getting to the article, I was asked about the nomination of Pete Hegseth as secretary of defense — specifically about an NBC News report that his heavy drinking worried colleagues at Fox News and at the veterans organizations he’d headed. [...] I answered by reminding viewers of some history:

In 1989, President George H. W. Bush nominated John Tower, senator from Texas, for secretary of defense. Tower was a very considerable person, a real defense intellectual, someone who deeply understood defense, unlike the current nominee. It emerged that Tower had a drinking problem, and when he was drinking too much he would make himself a nuisance or worse to women around him. And for that reason, his nomination collapsed in 1989. You don’t want to think that our moral standards have declined so much that you can say: Let’s take all the drinking, all the sex-pesting, subtract any knowledge of defense, subtract any leadership, and there is your next secretary of defense for the 21st century.

I told this story in pungent terms. It’s cable TV, after all. And I introduced the discussion with a joke: “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.”

At the next ad break, a producer spoke into my ear. He objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them. I said something noncommittal and got another round of warning. After the break, I was asked a follow-up question on a different topic, about President Joe Biden’s pardon of his son. I did not revert to the earlier discussion, not because I had been warned, but because I had said my piece. I was then told that I was excused from the studio chair. Shortly afterward, co-host Mika Brzezinski read an apology for my remarks.

Jesus. The abject obsequiousness is staggering. Yes, it’s a joke at Fox News’s expense. But Fox News — on-air — has indeed been backing Hegseth’s nomination, even though it’s quite obvious that everyone who works there knows he has an alcohol problem. From that NBC News report (note that despite their names, the MSNBC and NBC News newsrooms are no longer associated):

Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for defense secretary, drank in ways that concerned his colleagues at Fox News, according to 10 current and former Fox employees who spoke with NBC News. Two of those people said that on more than a dozen occasions during Hegseth’s time as a co-host of Fox & Friends Weekend, which began in 2017, they smelled alcohol on him before he went on air. Those same two people, plus another, said that during his time there he appeared on television after they’d heard him talk about being hungover as he was getting ready or on set.

One of the sources said they smelled alcohol on him as recently as last month and heard him complain about being hungover this fall. None of the sources with whom NBC News has spoken could recall an instance when Hegseth missed a scheduled appearance because he’d been drinking. “Everyone would be talking about it behind the scenes before he went on the air,” one of the former Fox employees said.

Note too that Fox & Friends Weekend airs at 6:00 in the morning.

★ Thursday, 5 December 2024