Last night, President-elect Donald Trump nominated Army veteran and Fox News host Pete Hegseth to serve as Secretary of Defense.
In a statement announcing the decision, Trump pointed to Hegseth’s advocacy for veterans and his educational background, concluding that “nobody fights harder for the Troops.”
But the move is raising some eyebrows, not just for a potential lack of qualifications—but also for a controversial video clip from 2019.
“I don’t think I’ve washed my hands for 10 years… I inoculate myself,” Hegseth said in the clip of him on Fox & Friends. “Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them, therefore, they’re not real.”
Hegseth’s remark drew a flurry of headlines and online backlash at the time, prompting him to clarify that he was fully joking.
“It’s ridiculous to me because of how people take literal and serious certain things and their heads explode,” Hegseth told USA Today.
He added that the banter was meant to call out those who obsess over germs.
“My half-hearted commentary to the point is, we live in a society where people walk around with bottles of Purell in their pockets, and they sanitize 19,000 times a day as if that’s going to save their life,” he said. “I take care of myself and all that, but I don’t obsess over everything all the time.”
But even though it was intended as a joke, Hegseth is once again being confronted by critics taking the quip seriously.
“And now I’m going to be laughing my ass off anytime a republican is forced to shake his hand!!!” one X user said of the resurfaced video.
“Guy couldn’t get a job in McDonald’s,” swiped someone else.
“Do y’all remember when Pete Hegseth said he doesn’t wash his hands?” blasted another person. “And then how we went onto say he doesn’t think germs are real because he can’t see them? What is he gonna’ defend us from – facts? Basic sanitary practices??”
“Trump’s incoming SECRETARY OF DEFENSE who doesn’t wash his hands and doesn’t believe in germs,” rebuked one critic.
“So, the Secretary of Defense is a guy that if he can’t see the threat, it doesn’t exist? Cool. Cool,” ripped another person.
“Our new Secretary of Defense can’t fight germs,” quipped someone else.
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