Senator Mullin Offers Strange New Defense of Pete Hegseth: ‘I’m Not a Great Guy’

Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) said people should not judge Pete Hegseth because everyone has “made mistakes,” curiously adding, “I’m not a great guy.”

President-elect Donald Trump nominated Hegseth as Secretary of Defense and immediately sparked a firestorm. A former Fox News host, Hegseth was accused of rape in 2017, though no charges were filed and he denies the allegation. Hegseth paid his accuser an undisclosed sum of money. He has also been accused of drinking on the job, which he also denies. These issues, as well as Hegseth’s marital infidelities, were flashpoints of his contentious Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday.

Mullin has been one of Hegseth’s most ardent boosters in the Senate. On Thursday, he appeared on Kudlow on Fox Business to make the case for the embattled nominee.

“I’m the last one to point out to anybody about trying to be on some type of a moral high ground,” Mullin stated. “I’m not a great guy, and never discussed I was. But you see Jennifer [Hegseth]… that’s sitting behind him, is watching her husband that she knows the faults that he had but she loved him through it. And they’ve been able to work out their differences and they’ve been together and they’ve got a seven-year-old child together, and they truly love each other… watching her husband just get absolutely assassinated from individuals that are no better than any of us.”

After Hegseth’s confirmation hearing on Tuesday, Mullin went on CNN to offer a similar, though less personal, defense of the nominee.

“What [Democratic senators] were saying is he was incapable of doing his job,” he told Kaitlan Collins. “And Kaitlan, what I was trying to get to is, if you’re capable of doing your job and you’re able to still drink on the job or late in the evening, then don’t tell me that Pete can’t. And Pete had already said he’s not going to drink, but they would just they just kept hammering it.”

Watch above via Fox Business Network.