Joe Scarborough Reveals Trump Showed ‘Noticeable’ Reservation Over Pete Hegseth ‘Problems’ in Their Private Meeting

Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough offered one palliative journalistic morsel from his “on background” meet-up with President-elect Donald Trump was a “noticeable” reservation about “problems” with Defense Secretary pick Pete Hegseth.

Shortly after Trump announced his decision to nominate Hegseth this month, the Trump transition team was informed about a 2020 payment Hegseth reportedly made to a woman who accused him of sexually assaulting her at a hotel and spa in 2017.

On Wednesday’s show, Scarborough had one “takeaway” from when Hegseth’s name was raised during his conversation with Trump, having visited him with co-host Mika Brzezinski on Friday, much to the ire of fellow liberals who slammed the move given the hosts’ past furious criticism of the Republican.

Keen to offer something useful and journalistic from the trip, Scarborough offered a morsel of insight gleaned during the visit while the Morning Joe crew discussed reporting around attorney general pick Matt Gaetz and Hegseth – both subject to sexual misconduct allegations, which the both men deny.

Co-host Jonathan Lemire flagged that there seemed to be “concerns” within the Trump team and added that Republicans seem “willing to draw the line on Gaetz” but that the transition team was “re-examining things because of the sexual assault investigation a few years ago.

“They do worry about that as well,” he said.

Scarborough then interrupted to offer his insight following his conversation with Trump: “I will say on background, in our conversation on background, there are a couple of things that surprised us. One of them was when his name came up, there was not a flinch, but a noticeable ‘we got problems here.’”

“Hegesth?” co-hosts and contributors chimed.

“Hegseth,” Scarborough confirmed.

He continued: “And those weren’t the words. But I will just tell you that was the takeaway, because obviously Gaetz is a problem. But I think there must be more there. I think they were just shocked, maybe, blind sided, because there has been no vetting process for these four. There have been vetting processes for Rubio.”

Watch above on MSNBC.