MSNBC’s Morning Joe panel were bemused to learn that Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has been reportedly bringing his wife to sensitive intelligence meetings.
Still reeling from last week’s Signal chat leak, where classified information was inadvertently shared with The Atlantic’s editor-in-chief, a report by The Wall Street Journal Friday revealed that Hegseth’s third wife, Jennifer Rauchet, has been accompanying him to several high-level military meetings.
The Defense Secretary brought his former Fox News producer wife to a Pentagon meeting on March 6 between him and John Healey, the U.K. secretary of defense, where they allegedly discussed future military relations between the two nations, as well as the U.S. pausing military-sharing with Ukraine.
Rauchet was also present at a meeting at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s headquarters in Brussels in February, where officials from multiple nations talked over their support for Ukraine.
Host Joe Scarborough said during Monday’s Morning Joe that many in the intel and defense community were “very surprised” to learn this news. “This is just one more example of Pete Hegseth showing what many critics on both sides were saying, that people are concerned, just very concerned that he’s not up for the job,” he told viewers.
Scarborough went on to joke that his wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski “won’t even let me go to meetings in the front office here.”
“Even when we have to talk to [MSNBC president] Rebecca Kutler I try to go in and she’s like ‘stay outside the door’ and I’m like ‘OK,‘” he quipped.
Though a secretary is able to invite whoever they wish to meetings with visiting counterparts, the attendee list is usually limited to people who need to be there and have the proper security clearances to sit in on these meetings, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The spouses of senior officials are typically granted low-level security clearance, though it is unclear whether or not Rauchet has one.
Panelist Katherine “Katty” Kay noted that going from being “a television host to being secretary of defense is a little difficult,” referencing Hegseth’s seven year stint as a Fox News Host before joining the Trump administration in 2024. “It’s not the easiest thing in the world to make that transition,” she added.
Kay also pointed out that Bill Clinton got “roundly slammed” for trying to bring his wife, Hillary Clinton, on board “to help sort out America’s health care problem,” but she didn’t sit in on “any sensitive meetings around national security that she shouldn’t have been in.”
Hegseth also faced issues of misconduct and alcohol abuse during his Senate confirmation hearings in November, with Kay recalling that Rauchet “followed him around” to all of his hearings.
“She was literally in every single one of those meetings,” she added. “I mean, it’s nice, I guess, when your spouse is supportive of you, and this is a very stressful job for somebody, particularly somebody who kind of, you know, did seem to have a drinking problem, according to reports, and said he was going to give up drinking to do this job. I mean, that’s bound to be stressful in and of itself, that maybe that’s why he wants his wife with him to kind of, you know, give him that sense of security.”
Hegseth also hired his younger brother, Phil Hegseth, Friday to work at the Pentagon as a Department of Homeland Security senior adviser and liaison.
