Pete Hegseth Has A Gross Habit That Won't Earn Him Any Brownie Points With Trump

You better steer clear of Pete Hegseth if you want to keep your hands clean — literally. For those wondering what Hegseth was like before he became secretary of defense, well, he was the guy you didn't want to shake hands with because there was a good chance of exposure to something ghastly. During a 2019 Fox News segment, Hegseth touted his strong immune system, and he credited it to one thing: Not washing his hands. "My 2019 resolution is to say things on-air that I say off-air. I don't think I've washed my hands for 10 years," the future Trump staffer confessed (via X, formerly known as Twitter). "I inoculate myself. Germs are not a real thing. I can't see them, therefore they're not real." His now-boss disagrees.

It's probably safe to say that the president stocks up on hand sanitizer whenever he knows he's going to be in Hegseth's near vicinity. Donald Trump is a self-professed germaphobe who used to be averse to hand-shaking and had to be convinced by his PR team to start engaging in the custom when he first ran for president. Now, Trump is known for his awkward handshakes, but staffers who spoke to Politico in 2019 said that he still frantically requests a squirt of Purell whenever he gets in the Beast after shaking several hands.

Hegseth might not believe in the existence of germs, but the controversial leader definitely does. In fact, during Trump's first term, he would try to distance himself from employees who showed any signs of being sick, whether it was the faintest sniffle, sneeze, or cough. "It was serious that you shouldn't spend much time in front of the president [if you were sick] because he would be extremely annoyed by that," one White House insider alleged.

In the aftermath of the internet frenzy that followed his remarks about not washing his hands, Pete Hegseth took to X to clarify, in a since-deleted post, that he'd been joking — a go-to excuse for the folks in Donald Trump's orbit whenever they do or say something questionable. The president likely still keeps the hand sanitizer close by, though, just in case. Perhaps the reason he instated Hegseth as the secretary of defense in the first place is he seems to have won the battle against germs. After all, Hegseth was alive and well after a decade of neglecting basic hygiene. Trump might admire that.

Despite their vastly different views on the existence of germs, these two agree on plenty of other things, like how much freedom the press should have for instance. In October 2025, Hegseth made headlines when he implemented measures to restrict access to the Pentagon unless media outlets complied with a set of rules, including having stories vetted by the Department of Defense before they're published. Most major outlets, including his former employer, Fox News, refused to comply. Ouch. Add that to the list of Hegseth's most embarrassing moments in the Trump administration so far.

The defense secretary's apparent determination to control what gets published echoes Trump's conduct. The president has called for the cancellation of several late-night talk shows where he's often the butt of the joke and rejoiced when "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" was temporarily pulled from the air in September 2025. Unsurprisingly, the divisive leader vociferously defended Hegseth's decision to restrict press access to the Pentagon. "I think he finds the press to be very disruptive in terms of world peace," Trump confidently informed White House reporters (via The Hill). "The press is very dishonest."