Pete Hegseth Hand Washing Comment Goes Viral After Trump Nomination

A resurfaced clip of Fox News host and veteran Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Defense, claiming he had not washed his hands in a decade has gone viral.
Since Tuesday’s announcement, the clip from 2019 has been reshared on X, formerly Twitter, with one post reaching over 1.2 million people.
“I don’t really wash my hands ever,” Hegseth said. “I inoculate myself. Germs are not a real thing. I can’t see them; therefore, they are not real.”
His Fox and Friends co-host Jedediah Bila appeared shocked, saying: “Someone, help me!” Hegseth later posted on Twitter that the comment was a joke.
Newsweek reached out to Hegseth via Fox News for comment on Wednesday afternoon.
The re-emergence of the footage comes after Hegseth’s nomination for a cabinet position within the next administration.
Hegseth previously served in Afghanistan and Iraq, receiving the Combat Infantryman Badge. During his time with Fox News, he developed a friendship with Trump, who has made regular appearances on Hegseth’s show on the weekends.
Trump announced Hegseth’s selection as Secretary of Defense in a social media post on Tuesday evening.
“Pete has spent his entire life as a Warrior for the Troops, and for the Country. Pete is tough, smart and a true believer in America First,” the president-elect said.
While the nomination garnered a mixed reaction from those in the military and the Republican Party, social media users used the viral clip to raise concerns that he is not qualified to run such a complex government department.
One X user posted, “Why is he not nominated for Health Secretary?” Another said, “I just hope the Generals at the Pentagon have someone to talk to tonight.”
Others, however, said the host was clearly joking and that a clip from nearly six years ago meant nothing.
Hegseth graduated from Princeton University in 2003 and was commissioned into the Army National Guard as an infantry captain. He was deployed to Guantanamo Bay as part of the New Jersey National Guard and, in 2006, served in Iraq as a platoon commander and civil-military operations officer.
In 2012, Hegseth returned to active service as a captain and was later sent to Afghanistan with the Minnesota National Guard as a counterinsurgency instructor in Kabul. Hegseth was awarded two Bronze Stars and a Combat Infantryman Badge during his overseas service.
Hegseth joined Fox News as a commentator in 2014 before becoming a host in 2017 and was considered to run the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs during the first Trump administration.