Political commentator David Frum joined MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” Wednesday to discuss allegations of heavy drinking against Donald Trump’s defense secretary nominee, Pete Hegseth. Frum introduced the story with a joke about Fox News, which then prompted MSNBC to issue an apology. In a written response in the Atlantic, Frum warned such an act is “a very ominous thing” ahead of Trump’s return to the White House.
NBC published a report Tuesday that revealed former colleagues of Hegseth’s at Fox News were deeply concerned about his drinking habits. Two people interviewed said they smelled alcohol on Hegseth before he went on the air, with one person noting that they noticed the smell as recently as November.
The report was a follow-up to a New Yorker piece published Sunday that revealed there were similar concerns about Hegseth when he was head of Concerned Veterans for America from 2013-2016.
When Frum began the segment Wednesday, he joked, “If you’re too drunk for Fox News, you’re very, very drunk indeed.” During the commercial break that followed, he wrote in the Atlantic, a producer “objected to my comments about Fox and warned me not to repeat them.” The topic didn’t come back up and Frum departed the set.
“Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski then read an apology for Frum’s comments. Brzezinski and her husband co-host Joe Scarborough came under fire in November after a visit the pair paid to Trump at Mar-a-Lago was made public.
“A little bit earlier in this block there was a comment made about Fox News, in our coverage about Pete Hegseth and the growing number of allegations about his behavior over the years and possible addiction to alcohol or issues with alcohol,” Brzezinski said on “Morning Joe.”
“The comment was a little too flippant for this moment that we’re in. We just want to make that comment as well. We want to make that clear. We have differences in coverage with Fox News, and that’s a good debate that we should have often, but right now I just want to say there’s a lot of good people who work at Fox News who care about Pete Hegseth, and we will want to leave it at that.”
In his follow-up piece, Frum agreed “there are good people at Fox News” but added that if the report from NBC is to be believed, “many of those same good people have failed to report publicly that their former colleague, appointed to lead the armed forces of the United States, was notorious in their own building for his drinking.”
Frum also expressed empathy for the fact that the popularity of “Morning Joe” has in turn “exposed the hosts and producers to extraordinary pressures and threats in the Trump era,” especially due to the President-elect’s own claims that he will retaliate against those in the media he feels have spoken badly about him.
He took responsibility for the comment (“my face was on the screen, my name was on the chyron, and anyone who took offense knows whom to blame,” Frum writes) but added a chill warning: “It is a very ominous thing if our leading forums for discussion of public affairs are already feeling the chill of intimidation and responding with efforts to appease.”
“I do not write to scold anyone; I write because fear is infectious. Let it spread, and it will paralyze us all,” Frum continued. “The only antidote is courage. And that’s infectious, too.”
Frum was invited back to “Morning Joe” Thursday morning by NBC’s VP of communications, Richard Hudock. He wrote on X, formerly Twitter, “We would have responded in the same manner regardless of when these comments were made or what news organization was referenced.”
“We have great respect for @davidfrum and his contributions; he is a valued member of the @Morning_Joe family. We invite him to join us tomorrow to discuss this topic and other pressing news stories of the day.”
