It’s Not Just Gaetz. Another Trump Pick Is Accused Sexual Predator.

Fox & Friends co-host Pete Hegseth, who was nominated by Donald Trump to be the next secretary of defense, was previously investigated for sexual assault, Vanity Fair first reported Thursday.

Susie Wiles (who has been tapped to be Trump’s next chief of staff) was briefed on the allegations Wednesday night. Hegseth allegedly acted inappropriately with a woman in Monterey, California, in 2017, two sources told Vanity Fair.

The allegations were serious enough that Wiles and Trump’s lawyers approached Hegseth about them Thursday, one transition source told Vanity Fair.

Hegseth assured Wiles that the interaction had been consensual, and testimony that said otherwise was “he said, she said,” the transition source said.

Before the meeting on Thursday, one high-level MAGA insider familiar with the allegation opined that Hegseth “wasn’t vetted.” A senior transition source denied that claim. “Hegseth was vetted, but this alleged incident didn’t come up,” they said.

News of Hegseth’s alleged misconduct comes on the heels of Trump nominating Matt Gaetz, who has been the subject of investigations into alleged sexual misconduct and sex trafficking, as his next attorney general. Gaetz’s nomination was reportedly the result of one conversation on Trump’s plane Wednesday morning. The Florida Republican’s nomination was announced later that day.

Hegseth’s lawyer, Timothy Parlatore, responded to the allegation against his client on Thursday. “This allegation was already investigated by the Monterey police department and they found no evidence for it,” he said, per Vanity Fair.

Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung released a statement addressing the claims about Hegseth. “President Trump is nominating high-caliber and extremely qualified candidates to serve in his Administration. Mr. Hegseth has vigorously denied any and all accusations, and no charges were filed. We look forward to his confirmation as United States Secretary of Defense so he can get started on Day One to Make America Safe and Great Again.”

Since being appointed, the 44-year-old television host has been criticized for his lack of high-level military experience, his blatant misogyny, extremist Islamophobic rhetoric, and his spate of tattoos with white nationalist connotations.

Even America’s most spineless senator doesn’t want Matt Gaetz to be attorney general.

In a Thursday Newsmax appearance, Texas Republican Ted Cruz was asked for his thoughts on President-elect Trump’s potential nomination of the loathed and embattled MAGA Representative Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general.

The senator initially dodged the question, instead accusing Joe Biden of weaponizing the Justice Department and “infecting” it with partisan bias. He eventually addressed Gaetz, avoiding any advocacy of the nominee.

“I will say that was a pick that was, I think, very surprising to the entirety of the Senate. And so we’ll assess the nominee on the merits, said Cruz. “But there is a process that will unfold that examines a particular nominee’s background, their experience, and their suitability for a role.”

Cruz was much warmer to the idea of his “dear friend” Senator Mike Lee as the attorney general pick, and reiterated the seriousness of the position.

“I don’t know that there’s a more important position in this Trump administration than the attorney general,” said Cruz. “And so I think it’s critical to have someone there who will follow the law, who has integrity, who is a constitutionalist, and who has the courage to root out the incredible partisanship and weaponization that has infested this DOJ.”

Gaetz grew unpopular within the Republican Party’s elected leadership after his destabilizing ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy. His attorney general nomination is currently jeopardized by a House Ethics Committee probe into allegations of trafficking and having sex with a 17-year-old girl at a drug-fueled party in 2017. Gaetz resigned from Congress in an effort to end the investigation, but it is expected to be leaked in the coming days.

Elon Musk is apparently trying to broker some kind of agreement between the United States and Iran.

The tech mogul and world’s richest man met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in New York on Monday, The New York Times reports, citing two anonymous Iranian officials. The meeting, held in a secret location, reportedly focused on how to defuse tensions between the two countries and lasted for over an hour.

The two officials said the meeting was “positive” and “good news,” according to the Times. Neither Donald Trump’s campaign nor Musk commented on the meeting. In the past week, Musk has been spending a lot of time with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate, and also traveled to Washington with him.

This raises the question of whether Musk was meeting with Iranian officials on Trump’s orders. According to the Times, Musk requested the meeting and the ambassador picked the location. The president-elect included the tech CEO on a phone call last week with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy only hours after Trump won the election, so it wouldn’t be Musk’s first dip into Trump’s foreign policy communications.

Musk has reportedly engaged in secret talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, according to a Wall Street Journal report last month, and Russia is allied with Iran. Trump also has a worrying relationship with Putin and Russia, which raises questions about whether Musk’s Monday meeting also has to do with Russia.

The meeting could also signal a change in tone between Iran and the United States. Relations between the two countries have not been positive since Trump’s first term, when he infamously dissolved the nuclear deal with Iran negotiated by the Obama administration and approved the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani in 2020. U.S. support for Israel’s brutal war against Gaza and Lebanon under the Biden administration has not helped matters either, especially since Iran backs the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, the stated target of Israeli bombing.

Trump has been a staunch supporter of Israel’s war and attacked President Biden for insufficient support of the country, which considers Iran its top enemy. A Washington Post report Wednesday said that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was seeking to give Trump an inauguration gift of a cease-fire with Lebanon. Maybe Trump hopes to make a grand show of “good deals” in the Middle East to start off his presidency. Or, as was the case in his first presidential term’s foreign policy efforts, his overtures may end up going nowhere.

It looks like there is at least one person who is happy about Matt Gaetz’s nomination to be the next attorney general: Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who said she was hopeful Gaetz would prosecute vaccine “crimes against humanity,” whatever that means.

The Georgia Republican, with a penchant for regurgitating extremist conspiracy theories, unleashed a diatribe of vaccine misinformation during a congressional meeting Thursday titled, “Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Lessons Learned and the Path Forward.”

“I think one of the greatest lessons that has been learned here is that the government and its powerful agencies should never use the American people’s hard earned tax dollars to create viruses that can be unleashed on the world, like Covid-19 was,” Greene said.

Greene claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci “lied to the American people, abusing his power and position and role, a very powerful role paid for by the American tax people.” She suggested that the United States had been behind the deadly disease, just to sell Americans an even more horrific medicine.

“People that perpetuated and continue to perpetuate these crimes need to be prosecuted, and that needs to be starting in the next administration, and I’m pretty sure our next attorney general will do that, and I look forward to seeing that happen,” she said.

Greene, who bragged about being unvaccinated, also suggested that vaccines should be further “investigated” and linked them to a supposed “rise in autism” and neurological disorders—something that has also been suggested by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump announced Thursday will be his nominee for secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

“This has literally been a war on people’s health,” Greene said, misusing the word “literally” and describing lifesaving vaccines as a “war.”

“Preparing for the next pandemic is actually recognizing that the last pandemic resulted in crimes against humanity,” Greene continued.

Will Gaetz be interested in prosecuting Fauci over his efforts to pull America out of a global pandemic? It’s unclear.

Gaetz claimed in 2021 that the best way to prevent yourself from getting Covid-19 was … to get Covid-19. “The best vaccine we’ve found is mother nature’s vaccine,” Gaetz told the right-wing One America News Network.

When CNN asked whether he had been vaccinated, Gaetz cut the interviewer off. “That’s very nosy of you,” he said.

“I think we should be talking more about freeing Britney,” he added.

Elon Musk’s Tesla stock is falling on Thursday after Reuters reported that the Trump transition team plans on axing Biden-era tax credits on electric vehicle purchases.

The president-elect wants to kill the $7,500 tax credit along with a larger tax reorganization. This will likely do damage to the E.V. industry and cause prices to spike. E.V. companies Rivian and Lucid, along with Tesla, have each taken hits on the stock market. Rivian fell by over 12 percent, Lucid fell by 3 percent, and Tesla fell by 5 percent.

And while this move does seem contradictory to his interests, the richest man on earth remains bullish. His aides parroted earlier points he made about this move, calling it “devastating” for his competitors, while Tesla would only take a small blow.

Smoother sailing was expected for Musk and his companies given his proximity to Trump this campaign cycle. The billionaire was a constant presence on the trail and has been with the president-elect constantly since his win, even joining Trump on diplomatic phone calls. Trump also placed Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, in charge of the Department of Government Efficiency, a position that little is known about at this time.