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Pete Hegseth, President-elect Donald Trump's choice to lead the world's most powerful military, has come under fire after multiple reports have unearthed claims of drunken strip-club antics and multiple alleged instances of showing up to work while intoxicated.

All of this has put his nomination to lead the Department of Defense in serious doubt, but Hegseth issued a defiant post on X Wednesday morning informing his critics that he's not backing down.

"I’m doing this for the warfighters, not the warmongers," he wrote. "The Left is afraid of disrupters and change agents. They are afraid of Donald Trump -- and me. So they smear with fake, anonymous sources & BS stories. They don’t want truth. Our warriors never back down, and neither will I."

Many observers, however, were quick to dismiss Hegseth's show of bravado given that damning new allegations about his behavior, including sources who have worked at both Fox News and the right-wing Concerned Veterans for America organization, keep leaking dirt on him.

"This is the last gasp, I think," observed journalist Chris Cilizza. "Feels almost over."

"We recognize the damage that the two of you can do, and we are repulsed by you," wrote X user Greg Camp. "Don't confuse that for fear of you."

Former Republican lawmaker Joe Walsh expressed disgust that Hegseth wasn't taking any responsibility for his actions.

"This is what Trump has taught his followers," he wrote. "Never admit wrongdoing, never apologize, never express any shame for anything bad you’ve done. Trump is humanly incapable of shame. His followers have learned from him. Hey Pete, undergo an FBI background check tough guy."

Progressive commentator Mehdi Hassan, meanwhile, took issue with Hegseth's claim that supporting him was a blow against so-called "warmongers."

"'Warmongers'?" he questioned. "Hegseth was once a big backer of the Iraq war. He has also suggested a pre-emptive strike on North Korea."

Another X user responded to Hegseth simply by posting video of the Hindenburg crashing.

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As part of a campaign to salvage the nomination of Pete Hegseth to be Donald Trump's secretary of defense, the mother of the embattled former Fox News personality made an appearance Fox on Wednesday morning in an attempt to explain away an email she wrote where she called her son a serial abuser of women.

Over the weekend, the New York Times published the leaked email where Penelope Hegseth wrote, "You are an abuser of women — that is the ugly truth and I have no respect for any man that belittles, lies, cheats, sleeps around, and uses women for his own power and ego. You are that man (and have been for years) and as your mother, it pains me and embarrasses me to say that, but it is the sad, sad truth."

On Wednesday morning she stated she wrote the email in haste while attacking the Times for publishing, adding that the Times neglected to publish her follow-up email two hours later apologizing to her son and then dismissed multiple new accounts of her son's alleged drunken carousing.

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Speaking with Fox & Friends' Steve Doocy, Penelope Hegseth complained, "They call you and threaten you. They say ‘Unless you make a statement, we will publish it as is.' I think that’s a despicable way to treat anyone.”

After sharing the clip on MSNBC"s "Morning Joe," co-host Mika Brzezinski had a skeptical look on her face as Joe Scarborough commented, "I will say a few things here though. First of all, she attacked the New York Times and said, 'Well, nobody's seen that apology.' The New York Times asked her when she said there was an apology email to send them that, and they would print it, and she could have shown that apology email on Fox News –– she did not."

"She also, when she was asked how the New York Times got this -- because she was attacking the New York Times –– she also didn't come straight forward on that when the New York Times suggested that she had forwarded it to a third party who then obviously released it," he added.

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A masked man shot and killed the CEO of UnitedHealth outside a hotel in midtown Manhattan, according to reports

Insurance executive Brian Thompson had arrived around 6:46 a.m. at the Hilton Hotel for a conference when a gunman who had allegedly been lying in wait for him opened fire and then fled, reported the New York Post.

The 50-year-old Thompson was rushed to Mt. Sinai Hospital in critical condition but was later pronounced dead, police said.

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The suspect was described as a white man wearing a cream-colored jacket, black face mask and black-and-white sneakers, and investigators said he was also carrying a grey backpack.

The shooter hadn't been a guest at the hotel, but it's not clear whether he had other business there.

The suspect fled though a nearby alley and then fled the scene on a bicycle, and he remains at large, according to multiple reports.

Donald Trump has used a private company to perform background checks on some of his appointees to serve in his Cabinet and refused to sign an agreement that he would let the FBI do the checks.

That ended Tuesday when Trump's transition team finally signed a memorandum of understanding with the Department of Justice, agreeing to allow the FBI to conduct background checks, reported legal analyst Aaron Parnas on Bluesky.

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Background checks look into not only the history of a possible staffer or nominee but also investigate whether any foreign government could manipulate an appointee with blackmail.

NBC News reported in 2019 that top Trump adviser Jared Kushner didn't pass his FBI background check twice over questions about his businesses and foreign contacts.

"Kushner's was one of at least 30 cases in which [former Pentagon official Carl] Kline overruled career security experts and approved a top-secret clearance for incoming Trump officials despite unfavorable information," two sources told NBC at the time.

Battling the throes of inflation can apparently feel like a full-contact sport.

That was the message from Fed governor Christopher Waller during a speech Monday, where he compared the more than two-year fight against inflation to a tiring bout of sparring in a mixed martial arts cage.

"I feel like an MMA fighter who keeps getting inflation in a choke hold, waiting for it to tap out yet it keeps slipping out of my grasp at the last minute," Waller said in remarks at an economics conference, as reported by Axios. "But let me assure you that submission is inevitable — inflation isn't getting out of the octagon," he added, according to the publication.

Waller’s metaphoric comments come as two crucial inflation reports for October – the Consumer Price Index and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index – dealt further proof that inflation was no longer on a continuous downward trend as in months past, Axios noted.

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"After making a lot of progress over the past year and a half, the recent data indicate that progress may be stalling," Waller said according to the report. But that could just be a temporary snag.

He added that inflation lying stagnant above the Fed’s 2% target was “a risk but not a certainty,” and pointed to similar inflation concerns last year that turned out to be temporary.

Waller also said he is in favor of the Fed cutting rates at its Dec. 17-18 meeting. But he noted that the decision primarily depends on "whether data that we will receive before then surprises to the upside and alters my forecast for the path of inflation," according to Axios.

“Markets expect the same; Fed funds futures pointed to about a 69% chance of a rate cut late Tuesday morning, per the CME's FedWatch tool,” the publication noted.

Several years ago, during Donald Trump's first administration, Fox News weekend host Pete Hegseth was vetted for undersecretary positions, and a Senate staffer for a Republican official worked on the background check. What he found was enough to persuade him against the nomination.

Justin Higgins, the former policy advisor to Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS), told MSNBC that many of the more recent allegations happened after his office vetted Hegseth. He also said that they did a political vetting, not a criminal one, and not one that would examine national security concerns.

At the time, Higgins said that Hegseth was being vetted for a few undersecretary roles at the Department of Defense and a few undersecretary positions at the Department of Veterans Affairs.

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"It was taking public information and searching through all of the public records, public statements he's made, financial records, legal statements, and it appears to me based on my vetting experience that a lot of these new allegations came from amazing investigative reporting that resulted in tips," said Higgins, who has since switched parties.

He said that as a result they never saw the information that is coming out now. However, even in 2016, Huelskamp's office could see "how uniquely unqualified he was based on his resume alone."

"They would give us a list of a person to vet and potential positions they were being looked at," he recalled.

For Hegseth, "the reason was pretty clear: he has no experience working with Congress on creating and passing a large budget. He has no experience running or working in a large bureaucracy where he's in a senior position in that bureaucracy. And lastly, military policy experience, i.e., how do we modernize the military in the 21st century with the rise of AI, and also foreign policy experience. This gentleman has none of that."

The interview came after reporters told MSNBC there are new accusations about possible drunken behavior while working for nonprofits.

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin frequently answers calls in the middle of the night with military emergencies.

"There have got to be Republican senators, senators asking themselves, 'Do I want somebody who maybe might have a drinking problem? Maybe might not be altogether with it at all hours, making those decisions?'" speculated host Katy Tur.

Hegseth has denied all of the allegations against him.

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