'There's a discrepancy': Former Fox News host doubts Pete Hegseth's sexual assault denial

Pro-MAGA Newsmax host Greg Kelly, a former anchor at Fox News, doubled down Thursday on his call for Pete Hegseth to withdraw from consideration as President-elect Donald Trump's secretary of defense.

Kelly said in an interview on his network that Trump's supporters criticized him after he first called for Hegseth to drop out earlier in the week.

"I think he is the wrong man for the Pentagon," he insisted. "I think he should not be the defense secretary."

"I love President Trump, but he's not infallible," Kelly explained. "And from time to time, you know, personnel mistakes will be made."

The Newsmax host said he first met Hegseth at Fox News in 2007 or 2008.

"He would come as an Iraq War veteran and say what a great thing the Iraq War was and how we were there for all the right reasons and yes, no weapons of mass destruction, but this war is going great," Kelly recalled. "And I believe that he was doing it for political reasons, self-serving reasons."

Kelly said his initial impulse was to support Trump's nominee before finding out that Hegseth agreed to pay a settlement to a woman who accused him of sexual assault.

"I was once accused of sexual assault, falsely," he noted. "I would never in a billion years pay that person a dime... That sounds like somebody who's blackmailable."

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"It's one thing if you didn't do anything, well then why would you agree to pay?" host Katrina Szish asked.

"I keep hearing, well, he's a changed man, but if he was innocent, what does he have to change from? So there's a discrepancy here," Kelly said. "I think he's addicted to power and prestige."

Watch the video below from Newsmax or at this link.