Reacting to Fox News personality Pete Hegseth's roaming the halls of Congress on Wednesday hoping to salvage his nomination to be Donald Trump's secretary of defense, the panel on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" called attention to the embattled nominee's history of financial mismanagement with multiple veterans' non-profits he managed.
MSNBC host Joe Scarbourgh was joined by Mika Brzezinski and Jonathan Lemire as he cited reporting from the New York Times that documented how Hegseth drove two organizations onto the ground with his extravagant spending that led to donations drying up before he was ousted.
"It adds to his list of concerns specifically," the MSNBC host began. "First of all, we have the sexual misconduct, including rape allegations and then you have financial mismanagement."
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"So these are the numbers that the New York Times brought up today," he continued. "They had an $8.7 million budget in 2008. Four years later, by 2012, it was in debt as the New York Times said, quote, 'It fizzled out.' He then was at Concerned Vets for America, who the Times said was at the time, continually spending more money than it took in. And then the last year he was there, it was $37,000 in debt. That's where these two small vets organizations –– and then on top of that, forget the financial mismanagement –– on top of that, you have the New Yorker piece that talks about the whistleblower complaints of his activities while he was there."
"So sexual misconduct, public drunkenness, financial mismanagement –– these whistleblower reports," he ticked off. "And all of that is on top of concerns that a lot of Republicans have he just doesn't have the qualification to be secretary of defense."
"I've got to say, as other people reporting, this looks like a failed PR attempt yesterday as sort of a last gasp, but it looks like the Trump transition team is already ready to move on," he added.
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