Fox News' Pete Hegseth's Gross On-Air Confession Will Haunt Germophobe Trump

Donald Trump's cabinet is shaping up to be an interesting one. Recent nominees include chief of staff Susie Wiles, whose resemblance to Paula Deen has the internet cracking jokes, and the controversial Kristi Noem, Trump's pick for Homeland Security secretary. Trump's cabinet is already trying way too hard to inflate his ego, but his nominee for secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, doesn't see eye-to-eye with him on at least one issue. The Fox News host doesn't believe in germs (yes, you read that right) while Trump is a self-proclaimed germophobe.

On a 2019 Fox News segment, Hegseth said, "I don't think I've washed my hands for ten years." This caused his co-hosts to erupt with laughter, to which he said, "Really ... I don't really wash my hands ever." He added, "I inoculate myself" before declaring that "germs are not a real thing."

Happily admitting to never washing one's hands seems like a surprising enough choice to make on live TV. Claiming that germs aren't real, however, is another level of bizarre. Hegseth affirmed: "I can't see them. Therefore, they're not real." Under normal circumstances, it would seem most likely that Hegseth was making a joke, but he didn't actually give any indication of that. Instead, he seemed to double-down on his philosophy and practice, claiming, "I can't get sick." 

It comes as no surprise that the Fox News clip in which Pete Hegseth asserted that germs aren't real has been making the rounds on the internet since Donald Trump announced his secretary of defense nominee. Hegseth's germ-related beliefs certainly aren't aligned with that of the majority of people and are particularly misaligned with Trump's take on the matter. The same year that Hegseth admitted his opinion on germs — which was notably before the COVID-19 pandemic — a former official on the Trump campaign spoke to Politico about the then-president's germophobia. "If you're the perpetrator of a cough or of a sneeze or any kind of thing that makes you look sick, you get that look," they explained. "You get the scowl. ... he'll put a hand up in a gesture of, you should be backing away from him, you should be more considerate and you should extricate yourself from the situation."

During an ABC News exclusive that year, Trump paused in the middle of speaking to banish someone who was coughing from the Oval Office, saying, "If you're going to cough, please leave the room." One can only guess that this vigilance extends to folks who don't wash their hands on principle. So, assuming that neither Hegseth nor Trump has changed their mind about germs in the past five years, the president and Secretary of Defense may be communicating only via Zoom call for the foreseeable future.