Following U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's Nov. 12, 2024, announcement that he had selected "Fox & Friends" host Pete Hegseth as his secretary of defense, commentators online shared past comments Hegseth allegedly made questioning the reality of germs:
The clip is authentic. Hegseth did say these words in a Feb. 10, 2019, edition of "Fox & Friends Sunday."
On the segment in question, Hegseth explained that his 2019 New Year's resolution was "say things on air that I say off air." Following through on that promise, he told his co-hosts that he had not washed his hands in 10 years because "germs are not a real thing. I can't see them, therefore they are not real." His co-hosts reacted with laughter.
A Jan. 23, 2021, thread on Reddit brought the quote back to the surface in 2011, when Snopes first reported on the claim. As reported by The Guardian, Hegseth largely walked back his comments, deriding the media for taking his words seriously:
On Twitter ..., Hegseth gave mixed messages. He claimed he had been joking and paraphrased the president in blaming the media for being so "self-righteous and angry". He also said he supported drinking from hosepipes and riding bikes without a helmet.
Because he did say those words, the quote is correctly attributed to Hegseth.